Business News

Although California motorists are experiencing an uptick in gas prices in most metro areas, the state’s average is holding steady, making this summer’s road trips more feasible for many Californians.

On Tuesday the average price in the Golden State was $4.14, a slight $0.03 increase from a month ago, according to the AAA Northern California monthly gas survey.

Northern California’s average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is $4.14 – that’s $0.02 cents less than last month’s AAA reported price on June 10.

The highest recorded price ever registered in the state of California was in October of 2012, at $4.67 a gallon for unleaded regular.

The least expensive average price in Northern California can be found in Marysville, where regular unleaded gasoline is $3.94 per gallon.

Of all the metro areas tracked by AAA in Northern California, Eureka has the high price at $4.28 per gallon of unleaded regular.

Hawaii has the highest average price, $4.36. California reports the highest average price, $4.14 in the contiguous states. South Carolina enjoys the lowest average price, $3.37.

“State gas prices could continue to hold steady, as there are no dire consequences to oil exports at the present time,” said Cynthia Harris, AAA Northern California spokesperson. “That, combined with ample crude oil supplies nationwide, has kept fuel expenditures for consumers on a steady trend.”

The national average price of gas has fallen for 10 consecutive days, but remains the highest price for this calendar date since 2008.

On Monday, for the first time since June 11, the national average price for regular unleaded gasoline reflected a month-over-month decline.

Tuesday's average was $3.65 per gallon. That price was $0.02 less than one week ago and fractions of a penny less than one month ago. Still, the price is $0.18 cents more than last year’s price on July 8.

Violence in Iraq continues to have an impact on global oil prices, but as production in the south of the country remains unaffected, the fear of a disruption to supply has abated.

Market watchers are keeping a close eye on the situation, but the risk that had pushed oil prices to 2014 highs has subsided in recent trading sessions.

These elevated oil prices have meant stubbornly high pump prices for motorists, but as oil prices have eased so too have retail gas prices.

At the close of formal trading on the NYMEX, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil settled $0.53 lower at $103.53.

Details: Written by: Editor; Published: 08 July 2014

ST. HELENA, Calif. – Eight noted American wine regions have banded together in opposition to the rights-to-the-highest-bidder release of generic top level domain names (gTLDs) such as .wine and .vin by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The regional wine organizations that are driving the opposition include the Oregon Winegrowers Association (545 wineries), the Napa Valley Vintners (500 wineries), Sonoma County Vintners (230 wineries), Willamette Valley Wineries Association (200 wineries), Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance (160 wineries), the Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association (150 wineries), the Walla Walla Wine Alliance (75 wineries) and the Long Island Wine Council (48 wineries).

These eight organizations, which collectively represent nearly 2,000 wineries, are voicing strong objections to the issuing of the .wine and .vin gTLDs, citing non-existent to grossly insufficient safeguards from illegitimate companies hijacking the history of fine winemaking in America and the rigorous, multi-generational efforts that have gone into creating, promoting and protecting quality winemaking regions across the country.

ICANN was established in the early days of the Internet to direct Web traffic to the correct servers and Web sites.

If granted to unscrupulous bidders, second-level domain names such as napavalley.wine or wallawalla.wine could be held in perpetuity by a company or individual that has never seen a vineyard, cultivated fine wine grapes or made a single bottle of wine.

“When it comes to fine wine, the distinctive expression of place matters a great deal,” noted Tom Danowski, executive director for the Oregon Winegrowers Association. “The importance of protecting the quality reputations of our fine winegrowing regions is what concerns us about ICANN’s recent action on domain names such as .wine or .vin. Fine wine consumers could be deceived into believing that they are visiting a website associated with a genuine product exhibiting the specific qualities and unique characteristics of a growing region, when they are in fact being influenced by an imitator who happened to be the highest bidder for that particular domain name.”

Citing the potential for consumer confusion and possible negative economic impact on the American fine wine industry, members of Congress, including Mike Thompson of California’s Fifth District and Anna G. Eshoo, of California’s 18th District have appealed to both ICANN and the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to delay or permanently stop the issuing of these domain names.

Of special concern in these discussions is an incorrect and misleading statement by the NTIA’s senior telecommunications policy advisor and U.S. advisor to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee, Suzanne Radell, that it is “just three U.S. wineries out of thousands and thousands” that are objecting to issuing of the .wine and .vin gTLDs while addressing ICAAN’s public meetings held in London last week. The coalition of American quality wine regions representing nearly 2,000 U.S. wineries clearly contradicts Radell’s testimony in London on June 22.

The Oregon Winegrowers Association, Napa Valley Vintners, Sonoma County Vintners, Willamette Valley Wineries Association, Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association, Walla Walla Wine Alliance and the Long Island Wine Council are also signatories of the Joint Declaration to Protect Wine Place & Origin, founded in 2005.

Details: Written by: Editor; Published: 06 July 2014

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Have you recently graduated from high school and are wondering, now what?

The Postal Service is hiring and currently has over 200 job openings in the Bay Area.

They also have job openings in many locations in California and nationwide.

While mail volume has declined, a large number of employees have recently retired, leaving several vacancies. They also are anticipating expanding Sunday package delivery.

The Postal Service is a great place to work and while many of these positions are flexible in nature, they can lead to full time career employment.

Entry level city carrier assistants earn from $15.30 to $15.63 an hour, tractor trailer operators $16.57 to $18.25 an hour and automotive technicians, $19.29 an hour. The Postal Service also offers health benefits and paid vacation.

Applicants must be age 18 at time of hire (or age 16 with a high school diploma or equivalent) and must be a U.S. citizen or have permanent resident alien status.

Males born after Dec. 31, 1959, must be in compliance with the Selective Service System.

Applications are only accepted online by accessing the Web site, www.usps.com/employment .

The following are a few tips to help potential applicants navigate the website to find current vacancies:

On a PC go to: www.usps.com/employment (the application does not work on MAC);
Next screen - Under “Search Select Jobs & Apply Online,” click the link >Search our latest job openings;
Next screen - Under “Job Search” – Select the city and location (i.e. San Francisco and California);
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the start button.

To see a listing of all current vacancies in the state of California, do not select a city or functional area. If a city is not listed, there are no vacancies for that location.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

Details: Written by: Editor; Published: 19 June 2014

WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-5) on Monday called for House leaders to bring forward for a vote legislation to stop discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

His statement came after the White House announced that President Obama issued an executive order banning discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Today, President Obama issued an executive order banning discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation. The president’s action is an important step towards true equality for everyone, regardless of whom they love. Now it’s time for the House Majority to bring the bipartisan Employment Non-Discrimination Act to the floor for a vote, and end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in all workplaces.”

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed the U.S. Senate in November 2013 and currently has 205 bipartisan cosponsors, including Thompson, in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The ENDA would establish basic protections in the workplace to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

ENDA would provide a basic level of protection against workplace discrimination and would apply to private employers as well as local, state and federal government employers.

On March 18 Thompson joined colleagues in the House and Senate in sending a letter to President Obama urging him to ban federal contractors from engaging in employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.

The executive order issued Monday does what the letter requested.

The full text of the letter is below.

March 18, 2014

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to urge you to fulfill the promise in your State of the Union address to make this a “year of action” and build upon the momentum of 2013 by signing an executive order banning federal contractors from engaging in employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) Americans. As you have said before, “now is the time to end this kind of discrimination, not enable it.”

As we continue to work towards final passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) with strong bipartisan support, we urge you to take action now to protect millions of workers across the country from the threat of discrimination simply because of who they are or who they love. We are committed to doing all that we can in Congress to get ENDA to your desk this year; however, there is no reason you cannot immediately act by taking this important step. This executive order would provide LGBT people with another avenue in the federal government they could turn to if they were the victim of employment discrimination by a federal contractor. When it combined with ENDA, these non-discrimination protections would be parallel to those that have been in place for decades on the basis of race, sex and religion.

An executive order covering LGBT employees would be in line with a bipartisan, decades-long commitment to eradicating taxpayer-funded discrimination in the workplace. IN 1941, President Roosevelt prohibited discrimination in defense contracts on the bases of race, creed, color, or national origin. In subsequent executive orders, Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson expanded these protections to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to discriminate.

IN addition, most of the largest government contractors- companies like Boeing, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin- have LGBT non-discrimination policies in place. They adopted them because business leaders recognize that discrimination is bad for the bottom line.

Finally, time is of the essence. Even with an executive order in place, full implementation of these protections will require regulations to be developed and finalized, a process that will take many months, if not longer, to fully put in place.

Issuing an executive order prohibiting discrimination against LGBT workers in federal contracts would build on the significant progress for LGBT rights made during your time as President and would further your legacy as a champion for LGBT equality. We urge you to act now to prevent irrational, taxpayer-funded workplace discrimination against LGBT Americans.