Press Release

Assembly Bill 1788, which would enact a statewide ban on certain anticoagulant rodenticides—the type of rat poison known to climb “up the food chain” and harm larger predators—passed out of assembly and is heading to the California State Senate.

The final vote was 50-16 in favor of the bill, according to Poison Free Malibu founder Kian Schulman, and was presented by Richard Bloom, District 50 Assemblymember, representing Malibu. 

If your dog needs a blood transfusion in California, as my boy Leroy did last year, you might, like me, think the blood donor was someone’s pet. After all, as I wrote back in 2015, many states allow pet dogs to donate blood to help save the lives of other pets.

But not California.

A new report from the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University found that more than a quarter of respondents surveyed who identify as LGBTQ say that they or an immediate member of their household were victims of a hate crime in 2018.

The study, conducted earlier this year in the city and county of Los Angeles and released last month, used a representative sampling of around 2,000 Southland residents to conclude that overall, 73 percent of residents think different racial and ethnic groups are getting along very or somewhat well. The report noted that this number is down from a high of 77 percent in 2017.