The Brief

A long-simmering dispute between California’s largest state employee union and a nonprofit organization that hires disabled workers is coming to a head this summer, and dozens of people could lose their jobs.

SEIU Local 1000 for several years has been trying to push the state’s correctional health care system to terminate its contracts with nonprofit PRIDE Industries at two state prisons where it employs dozens of disabled workers and others who are recovering from addictions.

The union contends that those contracts violate protections against outsourcing in civil service, and that the state has not made a good-faith effort to fill the positions with state employees.

Time is running out on PRIDE’s contract for the California Medical Facility in Vacaville and its 74 custodial workers. Last year, the state agency that enforces contracts and personnel decisions found that the prison system had not given a compelling reason to outsource the jobs to PRIDE, setting in motion the dissolution of the nonprofit’s work at that site.

“The evidence submitted by the parties show that the contracted work is essentially janitorial and custodial services in a medical environment that are and can be capably performed by civil service custodians,” wrote Suzanne Ambrose, executive officer of the board, in the May 2023 ruling. She gave the facility six months to terminate the contract.

That deadline has since been extended twice, until November 2024. As it approaches, many PRIDE workers will have to compete for about 45 positions to replace the PRIDE workers next year. The prisons also could hire inmate workers, a plan that PRIDE argues won’t guarantee the facility remains at necessary hygienic standards.

PRIDE for nine years has held onto its contracts providing janitorial services at state prisons in Stockton and Vacaville despite pressure by Local 1000. It won the work through California Correctional Health Care Services, which oversees prison health care. The agency argued it could not fill custodial jobs on its own, and it relied on PRIDE to do the work.

“The reason our contract is being challenged by the union is to put pressure on (state prisons) to hire and retain civil service workers,” PRIDE spokeswoman Kat Maudru wrote in a statement to CalMatters. Prison officials “should first be required to focus on maintaining services for the positions that are already allocated to civil service, contracted disabled workforce should not be forced into losing their jobs.”

The nonprofit brought workers to the Legislature in 2018, when they shared their success stories and helped persuade lawmakers from both parties to allow the company to continue doing business. That secured them a reprieve when the Stockton contract was on the line.

The company repeated that strategy earlier this year in appeal to lawmakers for the Vacaville contract.

California prison jobs changed lives

Chelsea Davis, a PRIDE operations manager, told lawmakers she struggled for years with her mental health — and she never expected to find a steady job. That changed when she joined PRIDE in an entry-level position at the Stockton facility that allowed her to keep her doctor’s appointments and treatment plan for addiction.

“They trained me, they guided me, they gave me hope,” Davis, who’s coming up on her fifth year with PRIDE, told a budget subcommittee.

Stories like Davis’ appeared to resonate with two Assemblymembers, Democrat James Ramos of San Bernardino and Republican Tom Lackey of Palmdale, who grilled state prison officials on their handling of the dispute. They questioned why PRIDE employees could not be directly hired as civil servants.

The two lawmakers later wrote to the State Personnel Board on April 26 in an attempt to protect the PRIDE workers, resulting in the November 2024 extension. The lawmakers asked for an even longer extension.

“PRIDE employees have demonstrated their ability to provide a high level of service to support a critical need for the state,” they wrote to Ambrose, asking for an extension on the PRIDE contract through November 2025 so that “interested stakeholders” could reach a “viable, long-term long-term solution.”

Anti-nepotism rules in California Government

State government has strict personnel rules that are intended to prevent nepotism and favoritism from influencing hiring decisions, particularly in rank-and-file jobs. That’s why the prisons can’t simply hire the PRIDE workers into state jobs.

“We are doing everything possible to ensure that there are town halls organized so that we can support PRIDE employees,” Vinay Behl, deputy director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation fiscal services department, said at the April subcommittee hearing. “We value the partnership and we will do an outreach to ensure that the pride employees get all the information necessary for employment”

Duane Reeder, deputy director of the state’s prison health care system, told lawmakers he had no concerns about filling the positions given “the amount of interest”.

Both supporters of PRIDE and Local 1000 say the jobs would be valuable for their workers. The Pride positions are designed to aid those who are reentering the workforce after significant life setbacks. Those workers might need help holding a job, or getting one in the first place.

Custodians represented by Local 1000 are paid 15% more than the market average in total compensation, according to a 2021 state salary survey. They accrue pensions and benefits through the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. They tend to enjoy better job security than their counterparts in the private sector. Recent job postings show the state expects to pay salaries of about $48,000 to $60,000 a year for custodial positions at the Vacaville prison.

In a written statement, a leader from Local 1000 said the union has long supported bringing the Pride workers into civil service.

“We’ve continued to encourage the State to make the necessary workplace accessibility improvements to be able to hire the PRIDE Industries workers directly so that they, too, can have access to a career in state service,” said Eric Murray, a bargaining chairperson for the union. “Despite our ongoing efforts since 2016, the State has not taken the necessary actions. This needless reliance on outsourcing must end.”

Curious gardeners have been noticing more grasshoppers — a lot more. And inquiring minds want to know why — and what can be done about these insects with a reputation for destruction.

" So what happens is the standard grasshopper that we think of can become a locust if the weather conditions are right," said Lynn Kimsey, a distinguished professor emerita at UC Davis who specializes in bugs.  "In a true outbreak, they would be, you know, crossing roads by the thousands."

We are nowhere approaching outbreak proportions in Southern California.

But Eric Middleton, an entomologist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources who works in pest management, can answer the why.

Big shocker: It's the weather

"For a grasshopper population to grow, you need a wet winter or spring so there's a lot of vegetation growing," said Middleton, who is based in San Diego. "Then you need warm conditions, which allow the young grasshoppers to emerge."

Think back to the intense bouts of rain Los Angeles received over the last months, the green hillsides and recent heatwave — these are the exact conditions for a grasshopper explosion.

"It's the same thing that triggers locust outbreaks in the Middle East and North Africa, or North Dakota, places like this," Kimsey said. "It's pretty common."

Many species of grasshopper skip and scatter around Southern California. Probably the most common, Middleton said, is the gray bird grasshopper. They're 2 to 3 inches long, with larger wings, and  their populations start peaking around now.

Another common species is  the valley grasshopper, which is about an inch long.

What you should do? Less is more

Depending on the species' life cycle, both Middleton and Kimsey said they expect this overpopulation to taper off by summer.

"It's not going to be a permanent thing," Kimsey said. " Usually they become bird food or mammal food because everything likes to eat them."

If they pose a threat to your garden, don't go reaching for insecticides, the experts said.

 "Usually, they don't do a ton of damage to your garden," Middleton said.

So try catching them by hand or using temporary netting.

" This too shall pass," he added.

Alternatively, Kimsey said, they make a killer snack.

"They really are quite tasty. I highly recommend it," she said. "Like French fries, especially if you fry them."

What sounds come to mind when you think of the rainforest? There's a good chance it's the singing of gibbons, primates with powerful vocalizations that can travel 2 miles.

Turns out, in Santa Clarita of all places, there's one of the largest populations of these long-armed primates in the United States.

Less than 10 miles off the 14 Freeway, down a bumpy dirt road, the Gibbon Conservation Center takes up about 5 acres of land speckled with trees.

The place is home to 41 gibbons of five different species. These tailless primates are known as lesser apes and they have arms that are one-and-a-half times longer than their legs. They can leap dozens of feet in the wild.

I visited recently to meet director Gabriella Skollar and hopefully catch the gibbons in concert. Originally from Hungary, Skollar came here as a volunteer in 2005 and has remained ever since. Now she lives on the site, caring for the animals.

“When I started working with Gibbons, I just felt like they are very emotional," Skollar said. "I see them hugging a lot. They are holding hands. And I also learned how rare they are, so I just kind of connected with them... They are very fragile and sensitive and mischievous."

Gabriella Skollar, director of the Gibbon Conservation Center in Santa Clarita.

What kinds of things can these intelligent animals get up to? Skollar said stealing glasses, trying to get into pockets and scrolling through pictures on her phone, believe it or not.

Skollar introduced me to a family of critically endangered gibbons whose numbers have dwindled to about 1,000 in the wild in places like Vietnam and China. Some have fluffy white cheeks that give away their name: Northern White Cheeked Gibbons. They got a snack of blueberries, the mom tossing them up and down in her hand while her nine-month-old baby clung to her.

The grounds here are lovingly-kept with vintage metal chairs and benches for hanging out with these primates. Inside the cages there are gibbons with bushy white eyebrows, hairdos that flip up over their ears and bulbous throat sacks that give them a couple extra chins.

So how did they all end up here? Skollar said the center was founded by her late teacher, self-taught primatologist Alan Mootnick.

“When Alan started in 1976, he had a small place in Chatsworth... and he had a couple Gibbons... And neighbors started to complain about the vocalizations. So he moved here in the 80s," Skollar said. "He ended up here because there was no one here and the center kind of needs to have a buffer from neighbors because their vocalizations can be heard from up to 2 miles away."

One of the gibbon friends at the Gibbon Conservation Center.

(

Robert Garrova / LAist

)

Hunting, poaching and deforestation are hurting gibbon populations around the world. Of 20 species, only one isn’t endangered. The center’s mission is to promote the conservation, study and care of gibbons through public education and habitat preservation.

And Skollar isn’t alone in that work. A small team of dedicated staff and volunteers keep this place running, like Jodi Kleier, who was popping pieces of steamed sweet potatoes into the mouth of a hungry gibbon.

“I think it’s their personalities and how different and unique they all are is what I really like about gibbons,” she said.

The gibbons eat six to eight times a day to mimic their foraging behaviors in the wild. Sophia Paden was hard at work in the kitchen, surrounded by sketches and paintings of gibbons on the walls.

“So we are preparing what we call the afternoon feeds for the Gibbons. So we’ve got the apples preparing, we’re going to do some banana leaves and some mango pieces,” Padden said.

Besides eating, though, there’s maybe one thing that gibbons seem to love even more.

“From day one, I was just fascinated with their song,” Skollar said. “It’s just incredibly powerful and emotional.”

Skollar studies gibbon vocalizations and said the main function of their song is to mark their territory and tell their neighbors that this is their home. Adult males and females will sing a duet, with their offspring often chiming in. I was hoping to catch one of their daily performances that start at sunrise, but was snubbed at first.

Skollar showed me how to kickstart the concert: we made a guttural grunting sound that can signal its time to sing. And then...

The gibbons’ singing is so powerful, it felt like the hairs on my arms stood up, a cacophony you can feel in your chest.

“People have different feelings about it. Some people start tearing up when they hear it. Other people, they want to join in, they jump up and down,” Skollar said.

Over the past two decades here, Skollar said she’s cared for some gibbons who died in her care.

“They all were trying to sing until their last day. And you could tell that it was hard for them,” she recalled.

She remembered one of her gibbon friends from over the years who died from cancer.

“At the end we had to climb up to her to feed her, to her sleeping box. But every morning, she would open the sleeping box and stick her head out and just sing along with her daughters,” Skollar said.

If you’d like to hear the gibbons sing for yourself, the Gibbon Conservation Center offers a guided tour at 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Reservations are required.

More info at the Gibbon Conservation Center website.

NEW YORK — CBS News said Friday it will shut down its storied radio news service after nearly 100 years of operation, ending an era and blaming challenging economic times as the world moves on to digital sources and podcasts. Said longtime CBS News anchor Dan Rather: "It's another piece of America that is gone."

When it went on the air in September 1927, the service was the precursor to the entire network, giving a youthful William S. Paley a start in the business. Famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow's rooftop reports during the Nazi bombing of London during World War II kept Americans listening anxiously.

Today, CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the country and is known best for its top-of-the-hour news roundups. The service will end on May 22, the network said Friday.

The CBS Broadcast Center on 57th Street in New York on April 20, 2023.

(

Ted Shaffrey

/

AP

)

"Radio is woven into the fabric of CBS News and that's always going to be part of our history," CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss said in delivering the news to the staff. "I want you to know that we did everything we could, including before I joined the company, to try and find a viable solution to sustain the radio operation."

But with the radical changes in the media industry, she said, "we just could not find a way to make that possible."

Not the first radio cuts at CBS

CBS News cut some of its radio programming late last year, including its "Weekend Roundup" and "World News Roundup Late Edition," in an attempt to keep the service going.

It was unclear how many people will lose their jobs because of the radio shutdown. CBS News was cutting about 6% of its workforce, or more than 60 people, on Friday. It's not the end of turmoil at the network, as parent company Paramount Global is likely to absorb CNN as part of its announced purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.

"Given the way things are going, I was saddened but I wasn't surprised by it," said Rather, who succeeded network legend Walter Cronkite in 1981 and anchored for 25 years.

When Rather covered the civil rights era for CBS News during the 1960s, he said he would file reports as frequently as a dozen times a day. Cronkite told America on television that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated; Rather relayed the news for radio.

"Radio was considered an equal responsibility to television," Rather, now 94, said in an interview.

Along with newspapers, radio was the dominant medium in how Americans got their news from shortly after the dawn of commercial radio in 1920 through the 1940s, with people in their living rooms listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats" during the Depression. CBS News Radio's broadcast about Germany's invasion of Austria in 1938, the first time Murrow was heard on the air, was an historic marker for the service.

Edward R. Murrow, a CBS correspondent who made his name from the front lines of World War II and from confronting Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s Red Scare, during a speaking engagement.

(

Washington State University/The Columbian

/

AP

)

Broadcasters like Douglas Edwards, Dallas Townsend and Christopher Glenn were familiar voices on CBS News Radio. The beginning of the television era in the 1950s began a long slide for radio, often an afterthought today with the world online and on phones. Those seeking audio often turn to podcasts before radio.

"This is another part of the landscape that has fallen off into the sea," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a trade publication for radio talk shows. "It's a shame. It's a loss for the country and for the industry."

A major radio player for many decades

CBS News Radio was a major force for generations of Americans. "Its heyday spanned decades," Harrison said. "It was quality on every level. It sounded good. Its coverage was as objective as possible within the realm of human nature. Its resources were extensive. It had a very high trust factor that was considered the standard of the day."

The front page of CBS News' website did not immediately carry news of the demise.

Weiss, founder of the Free Press website and without broadcast news experience before being hired by CBS parent Paramount's new management, has quickly become a headline-maker and polarizing figure in journalism. She held a "60 Minutes" story critical of President Donald Trump's deportation policy from being broadcast for a month and has critics watching to see if she's moving the network in a Trump-friendly direction.

Addressing her staff in January, three months into her job as CBS News boss, she invoked Cronkite's name as a symbol of old thinking and said that if the network continues with its current strategy, "we're toast." She announced the hiring of 18 new contributors and said CBS News needs to do stories that will "surprise and provoke — including inside our own newsroom."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Drivers know it really, really sucks to get gas right now.

California is (unfortunately) leading the nation in this gas surge, according to the American Automobile Association, which tracks fuel price trends.

And with prices in Southern California hovering around $5.75 (and beyond) — just for regular-grade fuel — it can feel like almost every station is trying to compete for the most notoriously priced gas.

What gives? And more importantly, how can you save on gas right now? We looked into it.

Why is our gas so expensive?

Prices at the pump have been skyrocketing since the start of the U.S. war in Iran last month because oil shipments are being bottlenecked along the Strait of Hormuz, a key supply route in the Middle East.

California feels this pain especially hard as the state imports a decent chunk of its oil from the region. Plus, that’s happening at the same time the state is doing its annual switch to the summer blend of fuel. So both of those things, coupled with our high gas tax, means the spike hits us hard.

If you zero in more to hubs like Los Angeles and Orange County, it gets worse. Kandace Redd, a spokesperson for AAA, said that’s tied to gas stations’ higher rent, wages and operating costs.

“That is often passed on to the drivers,” she said. “ So simply put, the higher the cost of living, the higher the price you’re likely to pay at the pump.”

Some relief could be on the way, but it’s unclear when that could happen.

How to save at the pump

• Don’t wait to fill up

During normal times, one subtle way you could save would be to fill up on certain days of the week. This is because California is one of the states that shows a predictable pattern at the pump, called price-cycling.

According to a GasBuddy study that analyzed weekly price changes, they found that the best day to get gas in California was Sunday, and the worst Tuesday. But that’s when things are relatively stable.

“During periods of rapidly rising prices … prices tend to keep increasing, not decrease, so filling up sooner is often best,” Redd said.

So if you know you need gas, don’t try waiting a few days for prices to drop until the situation changes. L.A.’s average gas price jumped 30 cents over the last week.

• Use GasBuddy’s 10 top lists

These show user-reported gas prices for stations near you. Here’s are examples of ones for Southern California:

• Top 10 Gas Station & Cheap Fuel Prices in L.A. County
• Top 10 Gas Station & Cheap Fuel Prices in Orange County
• Top 10 Gas Station & Cheap Fuel Prices in Riverside County

If you have a AAA membership, the mobile app also shows cheap gas nearby.

• Avoid stations in certain areas

If you want to pay less, stay away from stations in popular areas, like airports, tourist hubs or freeways. Neighborhoods with fewer gas stations can cost you more money, so finding a place that’s ripe with competition can also be better for your wallet.

Even position on the street corner matters. Redd said gas stations can charge more when they’re on a side with heavier traffic or when they’re more accessible.

“ Stations that are easier for drivers to enter, fill up and exit often attract more customers and may even charge a little bit more than that,” she said.

Stretch your gas tank by taking care of your car

You can save on gas beyond the pump, Redd said, by managing how your car is using fuel. For example, combining your trips or avoiding stop-and-go traffic times can cut down on consumption. It’s all about how you care for and use your car:

Reduce your load. That means clear out that trunk and take off that top rack when it’s not in use. When your car is heavier, it burns fuel faster to account for the load.

Maintain your vehicle. If you can afford it, keep the check engine light off and your tires properly inflated. This can help make sure you're using gas at your car’s intended rate. Underinflated tires are more resistant to movement, which can reduce the miles per gallon you get.

Watch your speed.  Your car uses more gas at higher speeds, so you really want to be sure to also avoid any sort of hard acceleration. If your car has an economy mode, that could also help by making your car run more efficiently.

 Turn off your engine when your car is parked or stopped for a long period of time. Blasting the air conditioning can also impact gas usage, though it’s a smaller margin.