Today’s Headlines: California sets a reopening date

Officials in California are looking to mid-June for a full economic reopening but say masks and other precautions will be required.

TOP STORIES

California Sets a Reopening Date

California is aiming to fully reopen its economy June 15, more than a year after the COVID-19 pandemic upended the lives and businesses of millions across the state.

Officials emphasize the move hinges on two factors: a sufficient vaccine supply and stable and low hospitalization numbers. There also will not be a full return to pre-pandemic life. Notably, California’s mask mandate will remain in place.

But officials expressed confidence that the state, through continued improvement in its coronavirus metrics and the steady rollout of vaccines, is now positioned to begin actively planning for what comes after COVID-19.

June 15 is expected to be the end of California’s current reopening road map, which sorts counties into one of four color-coded tiers based on three metrics.

In addition, Gov. Gavin Newsom said all K-12 California schools should be open in the fall for full-time, five-days-a-week, in-person instruction under guidelines released Tuesday by state officials.

More Top Coronavirus Headlines

— A possibly worrisome variant of the coronavirus first identified in India — so new that it has no official name — has been found in California by scientists at Stanford University.

— President Biden announced that he’s bumping up to April 19 his deadline for states to make all adults in the U.S. eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.

— Is there anything to worry about with COVID-19 vaccines? The Times reviewed the scientific studies published thus far and interviewed half a dozen researchers. All the information points to the same conclusion: The shots are safe. Here’s a closer look at what the data show.

— The go-to vaccination site for the young from Los Angeles County has been a new facility at Cal State Bakersfield that has more doses than patients and no restriction on age or eligibility.

For more, sign up for Coronavirus Today, a special edition of The Times’ Health and Science newsletter.

Iran Talks Begin

With tempered expectations, the U.S., Iran and five other world powers have begun talks aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that reined in Tehran’s weapons ambitions. Resuscitating it will require some complicated diplomacy that satisfies Iranian hard-liners and American members of Congress.

The meeting in Vienna is the first contact the United States and Iran have had in years, although it is through “proximity talks,” where the representatives of each country don’t actually sit in the same room.

The first day, on Tuesday, was “constructive,” European Union chief coordinator Enrique Mora said. “There’s unity and ambition for a joint diplomatic process with two expert groups on nuclear implementation and sanctions-lifting,” he said. European officials are serving as go-betweens for the American and Iranian delegations.

More Politics

— A senior staffer to Sen. Dianne Feinstein signaled that the senator would support circumventing the long-standing filibuster rule to enact a voting rights bill with only 50 votes in the Senate.

— The Education Department moved forward with plans to revise federal rules around campus sexual assault, paving the way for an overhaul of a polarizing Trump-era policy that President Biden has vowed to reverse.

— Caitlyn Jenner is considering a run for California governor, Axios reported, citing “three sources with direct knowledge” of the situation.

Confronting Racism and ‘Purity Culture’

Before a man burst into three Atlanta-area massage spas and allegedly killed eight people — six of them women of Asian descent — he was a teenager struggling to conform with Evangelical teachings on “purity culture” and abstinence from sex.

The Rev. Chul Yoo knew him back then. A former minister in the man’s church, Yoo understood the pressure and obligation the young in the congregation faced in resisting premarital sex. The Bible wanted them sanctified and saved from the immorality of an increasingly permissive world.

But when news broke last month that the suspect claimed he killed the women to erase temptation, Yoo, a Southern Baptist preacher and an Asian American, also recognized why a nationwide outcry erupted against an accelerating racism toward people who looked liked him. For Yoo, rigid religion and racial hatred had become entwined in one of the nation’s worst mass shootings since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged last year.

‘The Gospel of Fernandomania’

It’s been four decades since Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela started winning games with such aplomb that he set off the phenomenon known as Fernandomania.

Years later, announcer Vin Scully described it as a “religious experience.” Scully “knew such messaging worked because Valenzuela truly was a biblical hero of multitudes,” writes columnist Gustavo Arellano. “The David-like figure who helped his ball club beat those modern-day Philistines called the New York Yankees in the 1981 World Series. A John the Baptist who made way for more Latinos in professional baseball. The peacemaker in the Dodgers’ relationship with Chicano fans a quarter-century after the original sin of Chavez Ravine.”

The Times has produced a documentary series called “Fernandomania @ 40.” To register for a subscriber-only screening of the first episode Thursday, visit latimes.com/fernandoat40.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

“Lay off the ... chips,” somebody at the party warned.

The potato chips and corn chips at a singles party in Marina del Rey in 1970 had been spiked with LSD, unbeknownst to dozens of people who ate them and 17 whose unexpected trips landed them in the hospital, according to a story published in The Times 51 years ago today. The Times reported in an earlier story:

“Seventeen persons were hospitalized, including three women seriously ill and one man, with a heart condition, who was in a coma for several hours.

“Sheriff’s deputies described some of the partygoers as so ‘stoned’ they were unable to give their ages and said others were ‘really climbing the walls.’

“Many were wandering around in a daze, stumbling and falling, they said.”

April 5, 1970: The LSD-sprinkled chips are viewed by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies James T. Lyle, left, and Lonnie J. Pierce.

(Los Angeles Times Archive / UCLA)

CALIFORNIA

— The San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to suspend plans to rename a third of its public schools, including those named after presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

— Citing recent mass shootings in Orange, Boulder, Colo., and the Atlanta area, state lawmakers advanced a proposal for a new tax on the sale of guns and ammunition in California to boost funding for violence prevention programs.

— The Sonoma County district attorney filed 33 criminal charges against Pacific Gas & Electric for the October 2019 Kincade fire north of San Francisco. Fire officials said PG&E transmission lines sparked the blaze.

— A swarm of earthquakes, which included a magnitude 4.0 near Inglewood on Monday, jangled some nerves. Here’s what we know about L.A.’s latest quakes.

— With its large and diverse Asian immigrant population, the L.A. area is a center of the hot pot universe. During the pandemic, more people are enjoying the dish at home.

NATION-WORLD

— Minneapolis police are taught to restrain combative suspects with a knee on the back or shoulder if necessary but are told to “stay away from the neck when possible,” a department use-of-force instructor testified at former Officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial.

— Two New York City doormen were fired for failing to help an Asian American woman as she was beaten just outside, in an attack caught on the apartment building’s surveillance video, its management company said.

— Jordan’s Queen Noor — the American-born, Princeton-educated former Lisa Halaby — is caught up in a palace drama surrounding her eldest son, the prince she had hoped would eventually follow his charismatic father, the late King Hussein, onto the throne of the Hashemite Kingdom.

— Are French government ministers and other Paris elites drinking Champagne and eating lobster in secret lockdown restaurants? That’s what authorities hope to find out, after those allegations were made in a TV documentary.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

— Just 3% of Los Angeles’ historic landmarks are linked to Black heritage. A new project aims to identify and preserve more of them and to more accurately reflect the history of the city.

— Activist and #MeToo founder Tarana Burke and her producing partner have landed a production deal with CBS Studios to tell the stories of underrepresented people.

— Richard Thompson’s memoir, “Beeswing,” takes readers through his founding of Fairport Convention, his collaborations with Linda Thompson, the origins of his guitar drone and that time he sneaked a peek into Joni Mitchell’s notebook while she was on stage.

— Activist Yusef Salaam, one of the exonerated Central Park Five, teamed with acclaimed young-adult fiction author Ibi Zoboi for a novel, “Punching the Air,” inspired by his experiences. They spoke with The Times about their process, growing up Black in 1980s New York, and why they chose to write the book in poetry.

Thompson, Salaam and Zoboi will all appear this month at the virtual L.A. Times Festival of Books. See the calendar and RSVP here.

BUSINESS

— Between escalating overdraft charges, minimum balances and debit card fees, banking can be particularly expensive for low-wage workers. A new California bill would offer them such financial services for free, creating the first state government program in the nation to provide universal consumer banking, experts say.

— More than 2 million Californians may be leaving stimulus money on the table. Here’s how to get it.

SPORTS

— The United States is considering a boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics in China because of Beijing’s repression of minorities and other human rights abuses, the State Department says.

— Lee Elder, who became the first Black golfer to play in the Masters in 1975, will hit one of the ceremonial drives to open the most prestigious tournament in golf.

OPINION

— Private utilities are pushing changes that would undermine the growing rooftop solar market in California. That would hurt everyone, not just rooftop solar companies and people interested in buying panels, The Times’ editorial board writes.

— Hacks of Facebook and Health Net drive home the need for a national privacy law, consumer columnist David Lazarus writes.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

— Youngstown, Ohio, is cracking down on a company that touts itself as the maker of the world’s first self-chilling beverage can, saying it hasn’t lived up to its pledge to hire workers and bring economic development. The city had given the company a $1.5 million grant. (ProPublica and the Business Journal)

— Who are the best Muppets of all time? NPR listeners ranked their top 25. (NPR)

ONLY IN L.A.

Sick of loud noises and bright lights? Sorry, but L.A. has had them for a long time. Columnist Patt Morrison looks back at some of the searchlights, beacons, lighthouses, whistles and sirens that have added to the local atmosphere over the decades — or disturbed someone’s peace and quiet, depending on how you look at it.

Comments or ideas? Email us at headlines@latimes.com.