But there is one insight that seems particularly worth considering this week as the forces of technology and commerce are squeezing once vital California like never before.

As governor, Brown urged the University of California Regents to embrace the leading edge of technology as they transformed education — and he used the newspaper industry as a cautionary tale.

Brown recalled “walking through newsrooms of the once powerful California newspaper empires. … There were rows and rows of empty desks,” Miriam Pawel wrote in her book “The Browns of California.”

That was well over a decade ago. If he visited today, Brown wouldn’t even recognize many newsrooms. Some have closed. Others have taken on the grim distinction “ghost newspaper.” Many have experienced wrenching cuts, with more likely on the way.

The work of journalism is more important than ever in a world where democracy is under threat, corruption bubbles in local government and society faces sharp divisions. Yet there are fewer boots on the ground seemingly every week.

This summer is shaping up to be a pivotal moment for what remains of the newspaper industry — and it would not be an exaggeration to call it do-or-die as publishers are pitted against the mighty forces that technology giants have been building for decades.

Here is what is at stake:

AI arrives

Artificial intelligence has long been considered a serious but vague threat to the bread-and-butter of journalism, with news and service stories that a computer might eventually be able to spit out faster and a lot cheaper. Now, we are seeing it in action. Google announced changes in search that offer options from artificial intelligence.

The publishing industry is already raising alarm bells, saying this new approach will summarize journalists’ work without sending users to their websites (meaning news organizations will lose traffic and advertising revenue).

We still don’t know exactly how it will work out. But I did some searching using Google’s Gemini AI search tool, and it definitely offered fewer links to journalism websites and a lot more information that kept me on Google’s platform. News organizations are using words like “carnage” and “catastrophic” to describe the changes, saying they could lose massive numbers of users.

Everyone in the news business is scrambling. Some are making deals with AI firms, essentially seeking payment to have their content used. Others are suing, arguing that these AI results are stealing from them.

One last lifeline?

California is leading the U.S. charge in asking Google and other platforms to pay for the news that is provided. The idea is for publishers to get a cut of the bonanza of ads the tech giants are pulling in. The main proposal is AB 886, which passed the Assembly but is awaiting a Senate vote. Among the things the bill addresses:

• Requires large platforms to pay news outlets for their products
• Set fees from arbitration
• Requires news outfits to spend at least 70% of the money on reporters
• It is similar to news protection laws already on the books in Australia and Canada.

Times Sacramento columnist George Skelton handicaps things this way: “Key lawmakers have agreed to pass something this summer, but haven’t decided what. They’re trying to weave together legislation that would attain a difficult two-thirds legislative vote, be acceptable to the big platforms and gain Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. The governor has been mum.”

Publishers say the bill would be a lifeline and is long overdue. But Google is pushing back hard. Last month, it announced the search engine would reduce access to some California news websites. This week, Google also “warned” nonprofit newsrooms that the passage of legislation in California would threaten funding it has provided them.

It’s still uncertain where this will end, but there is no question this is a critical moment for the news business — in California and beyond.

Newspapers are getting smaller. The revenue needed to cover the state is dwindling. The debate about who should pay for news is more unresolved than ever.

And in an industry always drenched in (and sometimes blinded by) nostalgia, it must be pointed out that determining who pays for the news was once much simpler. In “Man of Tomorrow,” another great book about Jerry Brown, Jim Newton describes Brown early in his unconventional political career.

“He would spot a newspaper on a colleague’s desk and walk away with it without thinking to ask.”

If you value journalism and a free press, you can’t just walk away now.

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Others waved Palestinian flags, shouting “free Palestine,” and pressed union demands that the University of California divest from ties to Israel and the war in Gaza and grant all protesters amnesty from campus discipline.

The merger of union charges of workplace mistreatment with the goals of a wider pro-Palestinian campus movement has not only injected new fuel into antiwar activism, but has also become a challenging and potentially volatile labor dispute at three of the most prominent public universities in the nation.

The unique demands of United Auto Workers Local 4811 have labor experts debating over how the widely-watched strike — which has canceled some classes, blocked parking lots and prompted protests that disrupted classes — could come to an end while probably setting lasting precedents.

While unions typically strike over pay demands or benefit improvements during contract negotiations, this walkout is far different. The union charges that its rights have been violated. The university accuses union members of manipulating labor law to support political goals unrelated to everyday work and says it is breaking a no-strike agreement in its contract.

The escalating situation — union leaders say they are prepared to strike at possibly three more campuses next week — could have a lasting impact on how one of the country’s largest university systems deals with one of the biggest higher education unions.

That’s one reason why UC leaders said they are asking the state labor authority — the Public Employee Relations Board, or PERB — to order the union to halt its strike during a critical ending period of the term with finals and grading at hand.

“If what UAW has put together creates a precedent and a framework that PERB says is allowable, that will change all of our understanding about negotiations and what the framework looks like for labor,” said Missy Matella, UC’s associate vice president for systemwide labor relations. “Because if, for example, this is allowed, and if PERB says this is a lawful strike, then the University of California, the state of California, all of the public employers in the state of California will need to understand that labor peace is not guaranteed during contracts, even with a no-strike agreement.”

What led to the strike

The 48,000-member union includes graduate teaching assistants, researchers and other academic workers at UC’s 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory who lead discussion groups, grade papers and administer exams, among other responsibilities.

They walked off the job alleging that their free speech rights to speak out about their workplaces were violated when UC leaders called in police to remove pro-Palestinian encampments at several campuses, resulting in arrests and suspensions. They also contend the university violated their rights as workers by failing to protect them when a violent mob attacked protesters at UCLA, including union members, and police took hours to intervene.

The union bases the charges on the experiences of dozens of members who protested at UCLA, UC San Diego and UC Irvine. The union also says universities unilaterally changed their job conditions when classes were moved online amid protests instead of bargaining over those work-related decisions.

The UAW filed unfair labor practice charges with the state labor board May 10.

On May 15, 79% of the 19,780 members who cast ballots voted to authorize the strike. The total voter participation amounted to 41% of all union members — meaning 33% of the total membership approved the authorization. The rates were significantly lower than a 2022 strike vote, in which 76% of members voted and 97% approved of a strike that led to increases in wages and benefits.

“It was always likely that the strike vote and participation would be lower than in the 2022,” said John Logan, a professor in the department of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University. “These things do matter, but it’s arguably a respectable turnout and maybe even a higher than expected strike authorization, given that it’s… not a strike over pay and benefits.”

The university contends that the current strike is illegal because the union has a valid contract with a no-strike clause. Last week, the state labor board denied UC’s request to halt the strike on grounds that it was causing irreparable harm to students, research andoperations.

The university doubled down on its injunction request Wednesday, filing evidence citing the spread of strikes this week to UCLA and UC Davis and arguing that union members have disrupted classes and access to campuses. The strikes, it said, were “to the detriment of tens of thousands of students, faculty and other campus community members.”

In a response filed Thursday evening, the union said “the university has failed yet again” to prove its point and that its allegations are “speculative” and “unsubstantiated.” In some cases, the UAW put the blame for campus disruptions and blockages on pro-Palestinian undergraduates or other nonunion groups.

Union leaders also say the no-strike provision is irrelevant to the alleged violations they are claiming.

The state board is expected to again decide on the matter soon.

“We are urging the university to come to an agreement as soon as possible so we can resume teaching courses and research,” Jaime said.

Matella said in an interview that strikes were the wrong way to go.

“We have many arbitrations pending with UAW right now. So they absolutely have other mechanisms for resolving this conflict,” said Matella. “They’ve just chosen not to use them.”

Other academic worker unions, including those at USC, Harvard and New York University, have also filed unfair labor practice charges against their employers related to worker treatment during pro-Palestinian protests.

Union demands

The union is launching campus strikes one by one and has threatened to call on members on all campuses to strike through June 30.

Some of the union’s demands, such as amnesty from discipline for all people who took part in protests — union members or not — are relatively straightforward.

Others, including a demand that the University of California divest billions of dollars from “weapons manufacturers, military contractors, and companies profiting from Israel’s war on Gaza” are harder because UC leaders have declared opposition to divestment that targets Israel. Individual campuses have been more favorable to the demands — to a degree.

In an agreement with protesters to end their encampment at UC Berkeley, outgoing Chancellor Carol Christ said she supported examining Berkeley’s investments in “a targeted list of companies due to their participation in weapons manufacturing, mass incarceration, and/or surveillance industries” and would push University of California regents on divestment.

In a similar pact at UC Riverside, Chancellor Kim Wilcox said he would form a task force to “explore the removal of UCR’s endowment from the management of the UC Investments Office, and the investment of said endowment in a manner that will be financially and ethically sound for the university with consideration to the companies involved in arms manufacturing and delivery.”

Another union demand is for the researchers it represents to receive transitional funding so they can opt out from “funding sources tied to the military or oppression of Palestinians.” That would include those working for departments that were given portions of the $333 million the University of California received last year from the Department of Defense.

Legal debate

The strike reflects a growing national labor movement in which younger, liberal workers are increasingly unionizing and taking political stands, said David Lewin, a professor emeritus of management, human resources and organizational behavior at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Unions have long played a role in elections and even supported foreign policy positions, Lewin said, “but this is different.”

“Striking workers are taking a risk in supporting one side of a two-party conflict. It looks opportunistic because you have employees of the university striking at the end of a quarter or semester when final exams are being given, grades are due and people have to graduate. It puts a lot of pressure on the university.”

Time is running out for a resolution, Lewin said, because “as soon as most students are gone for the summer, the union’s leverage significantly decreases.”

He thinks the university’s claim that the strike is illegal is “stronger” than the union’s argument over free speech violations because “there are a lot of interpretations of what free speech means,” including protest rights that UC currently affords students and workers who continue to rally in support of Palestinians.

Some other labor experts take a different view.

The university’s messaging “is meant to intimidate the workers into not going on strike,” said Tobias Higbie, a UCLA professor of history and labor studies. “I wish the University of California would be a different type of employer, but apparently it’s not the way they want to go with this.”

Noah D. Zatz, a UCLA professor of law and labor studies, said union members were within their rights to stop working. Unfair labor practice strikes have precedent, he said, and go beyond “seemingly all-inclusive” no-strike clauses in contracts. That’s because because they rest on a union’s allegations that the employer violated labor law — in this case, California’s Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act — and not simply contract terms, he said.

UC “expresses incredulity that this has anything to do with employment and work. That’s strange considering the university is a massive employer,” Zatz said. “You have people who are employees engaging in protest activity on employer’s grounds suffering at the hands of their employer. The idea that this has nothing to do with employer relationships is very hard to take.”

What workers say

That’s the position workers promoted this week during pickets at UCLA.

Speaking at a rally, union member Yunyi Li called for “no business as usual” until UC leaders face up to alleged “unlawful actions.”

“UC can be on the right side of history by taking accountability for their actions by coming to an agreement with encampment organizers over amnesty, divestment and policing,” Li said to a crowd of hundreds gathered near the Bruin Bear statue. “We are all here because no worker or student should be forcefully expelled from their workplace or their school for peaceful protest, especially in the fight for something as righteous and as fundamental as a free Palestine.”

At UC Irvine, where no strike has been called, union member Mark Gradoni said he supported the members rallying elsewhere. Gradoni, a doctoral student in the history department, was arrested May 15 when police broke up a pro-Palestinian building occupation and encampment in Irvine.

On May 21, the university notified Gradoni of his interim suspension for violating campus policies on disruption and disorderly or lewd conduct, among others. A letter banned Gradoni from campus, in housing, or where any university programming is taking place and directed him to teach remotely.

“It’s pretty clear that the university feels threatened by students, faculty and workers asking for greater transparency and a greater stake in shaping our terms of employment and the way our university works,” Gradoni said.

Is there a way out?

Jaime, the union president, said all of the union’s demands were important but singled out one that he said would “do a lot to lower the pressure.”

“They could start by dropping the charges against workers — police and discipline charges,” he said. “Both completely have the potential to derail people’s lives.”

On divestment, Jaime pointed to deals struck at UC Berkeley and UC Riverside as “models” but said it was “too early to tell” what the results in those cases would be.

Amnesty from discipline, such as suspensions, has been promised to protesters at several universities across the U.S. as a condition of taking down pro-Palestinian encampments.

Mediation between UC and the UAW is ongoing, part of a multi-step process that could drag far beyond the end of this quarter, which is mid-June at several campuses.

UC has also filed its own unfair labor practice charge against the union, saying it violated its contract by striking.

Last week, the labor board issued a complaint against the union based on those allegations. The complaint sets in motion a process under which both sides will make their case. The complaint indicates the labor board’s view that, if the facts presented by UC are shown to be accurate, then the strike could be ruled illegal. The case is slow-moving — both sides have until mid-June to submit paperwork — and does not itself halt the strike.

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Michael Sainato

The largest union of academic workers, which represents more than 48,000 graduate student workers throughout the University of California system, will hold a strike authorization vote as early as next week in response to how universities have cracked down on students’ Gaza protests.

“The use and sanction of violent force to curtail peaceful protest is an attack on free speech and the right to demand change, and the university must sit down with students, unions, and campus organizations to negotiate, rather than escalate,” stated an announcement of the strike vote from UAW Local 4811. Earlier this year, the union voted by a margin of more than 9 to 1 in favor of supporting a ceasefire, according to the announcement.

The graduate workers last went on strike in November 2022 over a new union contract, which was the largest strike in US higher education history. They recently merged two UAW locals, 2865 and 5810, under the single UAW Local 4811.

“We have been calling on the University of California to de-escalate and negotiate with the protesters over their very urgent and moral concerns and it failed to do that and it failed to protect students and workers and allowed this violence to occur,” Rafael Jaime, co-president of UAW 4811 and a graduate worker at UCLA, told The Guardian. “We’re holding a strike authorization vote to hold the university accountable and demand the university respect the members’ right to protected speech and right to protest.”

He said the union also plans to file unfair labor practice charges against the University of California over the university’s use of LAPD against protesters and for changing policies unilaterally in response to the protests without bargaining.

“This is the defining issue of our generation and its really important for all, not just workers at the University of California but across the entire nation to speak up and to ensure every worker has the right to speak on this issue,” added Jaime. “We believe all workers, all students have a fundamental right to engage in protests and engage in free speech and universities need to respect that right.”

The United Auto Workers, with 400,000 active members and over 500,000 retirees, is the largest US union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, which they did in December 2023.

UAW President Shawn Fain recently reaffirmed the union’s position. “Our union has been calling for a ceasefire for six months. This war is wrong and this response against students and academic workers, many of them UAW members, is wrong,” Fain said in a statement on 1 May.

Graduate student workers are also calling on the National Labor Relations Board to weigh in on how universities have been responding to Pro-Palestine protests and whether those responses violate US labor laws and collective bargaining agreements with unions on campus.

The Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University has filed several unfair labor practice charges against the university since March 2024 in regards to Pro-Palestine protests and the university’s responses to them.

Forty-one students at Brown University was arrested and charges remain despite the pro-Palestine encampment dispersing as part of negotiations which included a planned vote by the university’s highest governing body for October 2024 on divesting from companies affiliated with Israel. The charges filed by the union allege Brown University unilaterally changed protest policies without bargaining and that made threats of retaliation toward union members for participating in Pro-Palestine campus protests.

“It’s really about the university trying to leverage this fact that as graduate workers we do have student status and kind of using that as a workaround for violating labor law and this has been their playbook on a whole host of issues,” said Michael Ziegler, political director of the Graduate Labor Organization and graduate worker at Brown University. “In the past five years, we’ve had something like 20 protests on the main green and there was never any issue, the university didn’t take these actions. This is new and I think a dangerous attempt by them to clamp down on the rights of speech and protected concerted action.”

UAW Local 872, which represents around 3,000 graduate workers at USC, has recently filed an unfair labor practice charge against the university over arrests of at least five union members. The union has called for charges to be dropped against all 93 protesters who were arrested on 24 April and for the university to concede to demands from USC Divest from Death Coalition.

“USC’s summoning of LAPD riot police to arrest their own students and workers for peacefully demonstrating is abhorrent and wrong,” said Maile McCann, a Local 872 member and PhD Candidate in the Civil Engineering department at USC, in a statement on the charge. “The administration’s actions show an alarming disregard for our right as students and union members to engage in peaceful demonstrations, and their decisions have put international students in particular at serious risk. USC’s unnecessary escalation has resulted in a shameful waste of public resources for the purposes of silencing dissent.”

A spokesperson for USC said in an email, “we believe the charge is without merit and intend to defend our position before the National Labor Relations Board.”

Brown University and the University of California system did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Brown University has previously said in response to the first unfair labor practice charge, “individuals are not absolved from abiding by Brown policies by virtue of union membership.” The University of California system has not yet publicly commented on the planned strike vote by graduate student workers.

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This is true for brain-eating amoeba infections, which are thankfully uncommon but do occur on occasion. The most recent sad instance was a seven-year-old child from Tehama County, California, who died from such an illness on August 7. While swimming in Lake California, a gated community in Northern California, the child apparently picked up an amoebic parasite called Naegleria fowleria. The amoeba’s brain-eating activities landed the child in the emergency department on July 30, when he was transported to the University of California– Davis (UC Davis) Medical Center. His health deteriorated to the point that he required life support. Eventually, he died. The parasite Naegleria fowleri may enter your brain by swimming up your nose. This nasty, filthy parasite lands and begins eating. The resultant brain injury is known as primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). PAM is awful, and I apologize to anybody called Pam. The membranes that wrap around your brain are known as meninges. When you need additional letters to express “brain,” the prefix “encephalo-” is utilized. Inflammation is denoted by the suffix “-itis.” As a result, PAM is basically amoeba-caused widespread brain inflammation.

The problem is that these infections are difficult to detect early on. Amoebas are very tiny and do not communicate. When they enter your brain, they make no noise. You may not have any symptoms for the first one to nine days of the illness. Fever, nausea, vomiting, and a severe headache at the front of your head are all possible symptoms. Of all, even if you have a terrible headache, a brain-eating amoeba is unlikely to be the first thing that comes to mind. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refers to this as Stage One. So, although other therapies are being used, physicians may not be giving miltefosine, a medication that may really kill the amoeba, or causing hypothermia, which involves decreasing the body temperature to decrease brain swelling. This basically leaves the amoeba in your brain, eating away quietly and inflicting more and more harm.

When something is eating away at your brain, time is clearly brain tissue. And your brain is very essential. Delays in identification and treatment are most likely to blame for the poor survival rates associated with Naegleria fowleri infections. PAM is usually deadly within 18 days after the onset of symptoms. According to research published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, just four individuals out of 145 recorded cases of PAM in the United States survived between 1962 and 2018. In fact, death occurred in half of the cases within five days after the onset of symptoms. Those are awful odds.

Hearing this may urge you to put duct tape over your nose to prevent anything from getting up there. Don’t do that since being able to breathe is essential. Fortunately, unlike pollen or the Covid-19 coronavirus, the amoeba does not float in the air. Instead, the amoeba prefers soil and warmer freshwater, such as that found in lakes, rivers, hot springs, swimming pools, water heaters, and industrial facilities.

Symptoms grow more severe as the illness progresses to the second stage. A stiff neck, convulsions, changed mental state, hallucinations, or coma may all occur. Even if you have more severe symptoms, it may be difficult to determine what is wrong since a disease like this may be readily misdiagnosed as a more frequent issue like bacterial meningitis. Again, “do you believe you have a brain-eating amoeba?” is not a typical question.

Another reason why putting dirt up your nose is a terrible idea. You also don’t want to be submerged in industrial facility water tanks. Neti pots, or any activity in which you pour tap water up your nose, may also be a cause of amebic infections. Swimming in a natural body of water or a badly chlorinated pool may also enable the amoeba to enter your nose.

You may be wondering why there haven’t been more than 145 instances of PAM throughout the years. Swimming in ponds, lakes, and rivers is, after all, a very popular pastime. Most individuals seem to engage in these activities without being infected with Naegleria fowleri. As a result, there must be some combination of circumstances that occur to make some individuals more vulnerable.

There are some times and locations when such an infection is more prone to occur. Doing the Polar Bear Plunge in Alaska, for example, is unlikely to endanger you. Because Naegleria fowleri prefers warmer water, the majority of illnesses have occurred during the summer in the 15 southernmost states of the United States. According to the CDC, more than half of the cases have occurred in Texas and Florida. You may decrease your risk of infection by holding or plugging your nose when swimming, particularly while diving, when water is more likely to flow up your nose. Of course, you should not use dirt to obstruct your nose, since this would undermine the objective.

The presence of Naegleria fowleri in any condition is undesirable. A sighting in Northern California is a particularly terrible omen. Infections have lately appeared in additional Northern states, according to a study in the Journal of Infectious Disease. Climate change is one potential explanation. Yes, climate change seems to be warming things up, which may enable the Naegleria fowleri to spread its range farther.

Who would have guessed that turning the Earth into a massive hot pocket by spewing pollutants into the atmosphere would have such a wide range of consequences? Perhaps you can add a brain-eating amoeba to the list of reasons to do more to avoid climate change. That is if you agree that brain-eating is terrible.

Jano le Roux | Contributed

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The potential cure Jin discovered is a peptide found in the fruit of greening-tolerant Australian finger limes, which have been consumed by humans for hundreds of years.

Invaio Sciences, Inc., a multi-platform technology company that solves agriculture, nutrition and environmental challenges by unlocking natural systems, has partnered with UCR to advance the peptide research to develop solutions for combating HLB.

During a seminar hosted by Invaio Sciences, experts discussed how they intend to bring this technology to commercialization within three years with the help of their collaborators. The Citrus Research and Development Foundation, Citrus Research Board and Florida Citrus Processors Association are among the collaborators.

Umberto Torresan, senior director of business development at Invaio, says the company is targeting a registered and field-ready solution by early 2023. According to Torresan, the first 200 days will be the most telling on whether this technology will be effective and commercially viable.

Currently, Hamlin and Valencia citrus varieties are planted in the field and being treated with the peptide, and researchers are already seeing promising data. The next step in the process is to receive approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A consultation with the EPA is scheduled for later this month. The final step that would need to be completed within the next 200 days is industrial production of the peptide, making it as affordable as possible for growers.

“We don’t need to wait three years to know if this is going to work,” Torresan says.

Even though some of work has already been completed, there is a lot to be done. Torresan stresses that a majority of the work cannot be done without agreement and support from the industry.

–Ashley Robinson, AgNet Media communications intern

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