Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/268765
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Gov. Jerry Brown formally launched his re-election campaign Thursday, step- ping into a contest that the former three-time presidential candidate is expected to dominate. The expected announcement was understated — a writ- ten statement posted on his website — in keeping with Brown's reputation for shoestring-style politicking. The 75- year-old Democrat said he had filed required paperwork to seek the office and was ready to deal with a raft of pressing issues, from a potentially devastating drought to a pension system mired in long-term debt. ''At this stage of my life, I can say without any hesitation that I am prepared and excited to tackle these challenges,'' said Brown, the longest-serving governor in state history. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Officials at a Northern California high school acted appropriately when they ordered students wearing American flag T- shirts to turn the garments inside out during the Mexi- can heritage celebration Cinco de Mayo, a federal appeals court ruled Thurs- day. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the officials' concerns of racial violence outweighed stu- dents' freedom of expres- sion rights. Administrators feared the American-flag shirts would enflame the passions of Latino students celebrating the Mexican holiday. Live Oak High School, in the San Jose sub- urb of Morgan Hill, had a history of problems between white and Latino students on that day. The unanimous three- judge panel said past prob- lems gave school officials sufficient and justifiable rea- sons for their actions. The court said schools have wide latitude in curbing cer- tain civil rights to ensure campus safety. ''Our role is not to sec- ond-guess the decision to have a Cinco de Mayo cel- ebration or the precautions put in place to avoid vio- lence,'' Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the panel. The past events ''made it reasonable for school officials to proceed as though the threat of a potentially violent distur- bance was real,'' she wrote. The case garnered national attention as many expressed outrage that stu- dents were barred from wearing patriotic clothing. The Ann Arbor, Mich.- based American Freedom Law Center, a politically conservative legal aid foun- dation, and other similar organizations took up the students' case and sued the high school and the school district. William Becker, one of the lawyers representing the students, said he plans to ask a special 11-judge panel of the appeals court to rehear the case. Becker said he would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if he loses again. ''The 9th Circuit upheld the rights of Mexican stu- dents celebrating a holiday of another country over U.S. student proudly supporting this country,'' Becker said. 7A Friday, February 28, 2014 – Daily News R ed Bluff Simple Cremations & Burial Service Now Offering Eco-Friendly urns at economy friendly prices. 722 Oak Street, Red Bluff, FD Lic. 1931 527-1732 Obituaries Setting it straight –––––––– It is the policy of the Daily News to correct as quickly as possible all errors in fact that have been published in the newspaper. If you feel a factual error has been made in a news story, call the news department at 527-2153. ROBERT RANBERG Robert Ranberg, 83 passed away at Red Bluff Health Care February 18, 2014. Robert was born to Willis C. Ranberg & Nellie Potocki Ranberg on July 7, 1930,on Long Island, N.Y. In 1948 the family moved to Red Bluff after Robert's High School graduation. Robert worked for Corona Box, Commander Industries and Louisana-Pacific for over 40 years. Robert enjoyed photography and mak- ing films. Robert is survived by is twin brother Richard E. (Pat) and sister Lois (Tony) Mendonca, aunts, Harriett Baluk and Barbara Ranberg, numerous cousins, nieces and nephews. Robert is preceded in death by parents Willis C. and Nellie Potocki Ranberg, nephew Matt Mendonca and niece Elaine Ranberg Lowe. Robert's family wishes to thank the staff at Red Bluff Health Care for their outstanding care. Donation may be made to Tehama County Crippled Children and Adults, P.O. Box 605, Red Bluff, CA. No services will be held. Public Works provides sand bags Tehama County Public Works will deliver sand and sandbags to the following locations Friday for public use: • Walnut Street Complex, Red Bluff; west side of the westerly dri- veway. • County Library site on Madi- son Street, Red Bluff; parking lot on north side of building. • Public Works main corporation yard, 9380 San Benito Ave., Ger- ber; north end building next to San Benito Avenue. • Public Works Los Molinos storage yard, Fox Street; immedi- ately outside the front gate. • 5th Street, Corning; across the street form the Fire Department — bags are available at the fire sta- tion. Corning truck stop robbed at gunpoint The Travel Centers of America in Corning was robbed at gunpoint early Thursday morning. Around 4:30 a.m. Corning Police responded to the truck stop for a report of an armed rob- bery, according to a department press release. The suspect entered the store, brandished a handgun and demanded cash. Employees described the suspect as a Hispanic man, lightly complected, wearing dark clothing. He concealed his identify by covering his face with a bandanna. The suspect was last seen fleeing the store on foot to the north. Anyone with informa- tion is asked to contact the Corning Police Depart- ment at 824-7000. Rios has pleaded not guilty, and a jury trial is scheduled for late March, according to online court records. According to a Daily News article, the child was taken to St. Elizabeth Community Hospital the evening of Sept. 26, 2012 by the suspects. "Hospital staff initiated CPR in an attempt to revive the infant, but he was pronounced dead short afterward," accord- ing to the article. The District Attorney's Office said the infant, sometime in March or April 2012, was taken by Child Protective Services, but returned to the mother because of inconclusive injuries. Continued from page 1A BABY dents who were in the nearby vicinity. Principal Ron Fisher said he came across one room where no teacher was present and the lock- ing mechanism didn't work. A small group of students had taken it upon themselves to hold the door shut, using their backpacks for more lever- age. Several lessons were learned about what the school can do to improve safety in the future, but the lockdown drill also led to some complicated issues. Some students didn't make it into a classroom before doors were locked and were left knocking to get in to a secure area. Administrators and the police officers discussed whether there should be a policy for whether a teacher should open a door in such a case or leave it as a judgment call. It's a serious question, but one that's better fig- ured out now than in a real life scenario. "It's good that we did this. It's terrible that we had to," interim Superin- tendent Joe Harrop said of the drill. Rich Greene can be reached at 527-2151, ext. 109 or rgreene@redbluffdailyne ws.com. Continued from page 1A DRILL 158 students came together to par- ticipate in an integrated capstone event, or ICE, and responded to an earthquake that resulted in a mass casualty incident. Specifically, the Northern Cali- fornia ICE scenario involved an earthquake hitting a fictional city. The earthquake damage caused a release of hazardous material that resulted in more than 300 injured people needing triage and treatment. The center uses role players, human-patient simulators and man- nequins to simulate the victims the responders must triage, treat and transport. As the incident unfolds, emergency responders in the three different courses had to work together to save lives and rescue sur- vivors from the incident. "This training allowed us to net- work with individuals from our region," said Ruth Ann Rowen, RN, Emergency Management coordina- tor at St. Elizabeth Community Hos- pital. "These are the very people that you may need to call for assis- tance during a large incident. To be able to train and learn in such a real- istic environment was immeasurable in worth and value." The CDP provides emergency responders and receivers with nec- essary skills to respond to and man- age incidents. This training provides the tools needed to protect Ameri- ca's responders from contaminated crime scenes or accidents, and effectively save lives. The center offers more than 40 courses designed for all emergency response disciplines. CDP training is fully funded by the Federal Emergency Manage- ment Agency (FEMA) for state, local and tribal responders. Travel, lodging and meals are provided at no cost to responders, their agency or their jurisdiction. For more infor- mation, visit cdp.dhs.gov or www.facebook.com/cdpfema. Continued from page 1A DISASTER state of emergency. One provision was amended Wednesday to limit the board's ability to issue fines, after Republicans raised concern about language infringing on existing water rights. The bills passed with large bipartisan majorities, even though a handful of Republicans in each house voted against them. Sen. Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, said negotiations in the last week largely satisfied the concerns of water dis- tricts and farmers in her district. She noted the high unemployment throughout the Central Valley because of the drought-related cutbacks in the agricultural industry. ''We are willing to reach out and help some of those in my area who will have 30 or 40 percent unemploy- ment,'' she said. Other spending contained in the legislation includes $77 million in bond money for flood protection, $40 million for water efficiency and water-saving irrigation projects, and $1 million for a conservation-awareness campaign. Republicans questioned the tapping of $40 million from a fund meant for projects that will reduce green- house gas emissions, saying water projects are only tangentially related. Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, countered that 20 percent of Californians' electricity consumption relates to water. ''If we reduce water use, we reduce some proportion of electricity and some proportion of methane,'' she said. Assemblyman Frank Bigelow, R-O'Neals, said he supported the bills but cautioned that lawmakers have more work to do to solve the state's water shortage. ''We cannot forget this does not fix the long-term water woes,'' Bigelow says. ''The legislation does not provide any real water.'' Lawmakers are continuing to negotiate changes to an $11.1 billion water bond scheduled to go before vot- ers in November. The Legislature originally passed the bond measure in 2009 and has delayed its appearance on the ballot several times since. It is considered too expensive and too full of pet projects. Among the disagreements over long-term solutions is whether California needs to build more reservoirs and expand existing ones by raising the height of dams. Republicans generally want more storage while many Democrats prefer increased conservation. California's last major reservoir was completed when the state's population was roughly half of its cur- rent 38 million people. Sen. Mark Wyland, R-Escondido, said he would like to see Thursday's vote on the immediate relief generate momentum for the future debate about long-term solu- tions. ''I hope this is the beginning of dramatically increas- ing storage,'' he said. Continued from page 1A DROUGHT Court: Drivers can read cellphone maps FRESNO (AP) — Dri- vers in California can legal- ly read a map on their hand-held cellphones while behind the wheel, a state appeals court ruled Thurs- day. The 5th District Court of Appeal reversed the case of a Fresno man who was ticketed in January 2012 for looking at a map on his iPhone 4 while stuck in traffic. The driver, Steven Spriggs, challenged the $165 fine. But Spriggs said he's no champion of those who think they can get away with cruising down the road while staring at their phone or engaging in other such dangerous behavior. Spriggs would like the law that ensnared him to be rewritten so officers can do their job unencumbered. ''We're distracted all the time,'' he said. ''If our dis- tractions cause us to drive erratically, we should be arrested for driving errati- cally.'' It's personal for Spriggs, whose son suffered a bro- ken leg from a driver who was chatting on a cell- phone. Spriggs said he uses a hands-free device to talk and drive. The incident that ensnared Spriggs happened when he was stopped by roadwork. He had grabbed his cellphone to find an alternate route when a Cal- ifornia Highway Patrol officer on a motorcycle spotted him and wrote the ticket. Spriggs first challenged the case in traffic court, where he lost, and then appealed it himself to a three-judge panel in Fresno County Superior Court, where he lost a second time. Determined that the law didn't apply to him, Sprig- gs took it to the appellate court, but this time with help of a law firm that stepped in to represent him pro bono. In their 18-page ruling, the appellate judges said California's law that pro- hibits people from talking on their cellphones without a hands-free device could have been written more clearly, but it doesn't apply to looking at maps on cell- phones. The law the CHP officer used to ticket Sprig- gs applies specifically to people ''listening and talk- ing'' on cellphones, not using their mobile phone in other ways, the court said. Texting while driving remains illegal under another California law passed after the one at issue in Spriggs' case. Attorney Scott Reddie, who represented Spriggs, said it's now up to the state attorney general's office to decide if it will challenge Thursday's ruling to the California Supreme Court, which is choosy about which cases it hears. Nicholas Pacilio, a spokesman for Attorney General Kamala Harris, said the office is reviewing the ruling. Neither Reddie nor Pacilio were familiar with other states that prohibit drivers from looking at cellphone map applica- tions. Spriggs, who is entitled to recoup his $165 fine, said the Superior Court judges who had upheld his violation were guilty of overreaching by applying the spotty law to him. He hopes that California legis- lators will now revisit the issue and fix it. ''They're going to have to do something,'' he said. ''I just hope they take a look at the big picture.'' Court: School can ban US flag shirts for safety California Gov. Jerry Brown will seek re-election California data breaches hit 21.3 million accounts SACRAMENTO (AP) — California businesses and government agencies have experienced 300 separate data breaches exposing the personal information of more than 20 million customer accounts during the past two years, leading state Attorney General Kamala Har- ris on Thursday to elevate cybersecurity as a key focus of the state's top crime-fighting agency. Harris said the California Department of Justice will begin playing a more active role in advising employers about cybersecurity, while her office will be taking the lead on a previously announced state-level investigation into some of the most significant nationwide data breaches. The 170 breaches reported to the attorney general's office in 2013 represent a 30 percent increase over the 131 identified the year before, when state law required such reporting for the first time, according to figures provided to The Associated Press.