• SAN FRANCISCO LEADERS PUT $15 WAGE ON BALLOT: SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco supervisors have voted in favor of The supervisors voted unanimously and without comment in favor of the move on Tuesday.
The city’s current minimum wage is $10.74. The measure would increase it gradually over the next several years until it reached $15 an hour in 2018.
The mayor, city supervisors and business and labor leaders announced last month that they had reached a deal on the measure. As part of the deal, labor activists who were pursuing their own $15 minimum wage ballot measure agreed to drop their effort.
They wanted the increase to take effect one year earlier, in 2017.
• BOY, 3, DIES AFTER CLIMBING INTO HOT CAR IN LA: LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles police say a 3-year-old boy has died after climbing into a car during scorching weather.
LAPD spokesman Bruce Borihanh says the boy was playing by himself in the yard of a Sylmar home Wednesday afternoon when he climbed into the family car, was overcome by heat and couldn’t get out.
His brother found the boy and police were called around 3:30 p.m. but the boy died at a hospital.
His name hasn’t been released.
Temperatures in the area topped 95 degrees and authorities say it can get much hotter inside a car.
Borihanh says the boy’s death appears to be a tragic accident but his parents are being interviewed and the investigation continues.
• 500K IN CHARGERS STOLEN FROM UNION CITY WAREHOUSE: UNION CITY (AP) — A technology company says thieves stole a half-million dollars’ worth of phone chargers from its San Francisco Bay area warehouse.
Brian Westphal, chief marketing officer of UNU Electronics, says the thieves gained access by cutting a 2-foot by 3-foot hole in large metal loading doors at the facility in Union City.
Westphal says they got away with three pallets full of chargers and phone accessories.
The company has put up a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible.
Officials are also warning customers to be on the lookout for unauthorized sales of the products.
• MOM ACCUSED OF LEAVING KIDS IN CAR FACES CHARGES: LIVERMORE (AP) — A mother charged with leaving two toddlers in a car while she gambled at a Northern California casino has been charged with felony child abuse.
Phaley Nget of Oakland was arrested July 20 after police found her daughters, ages 2 and 3, locked inside a car while she gambled at Livermore’s Casino 580.
Court papers show that after officers rescued the children and found Nget she told them she was away from the vehicle for five minutes to use the casino’s bathroom. However, surveillance video showed she was gambling for 26 minutes.
Police say the temperature inside the car was 81 degrees.
The children were taken into protective custody.
• VINTAGE RIFLES STOLEN FROM EL MONTE MUSEUM: EL MONTE (AP) — Police are searching for two thieves who broke into the El Monte Historical Museum and stole four vintage rifles.
Responding officers found that the museum’s rear door had been forced open with a crowbar.
Authorities say the pair broke open a display case with various World War II era items.
Security cameras recorded the thieves fleeing in a white Honda Accord with tinted windows and black rims.
• FIREFIGHTERS RESCUE HORSE TRAPPED IN DITCH: HESPERIA (AP) — About 20 firefighters with help from a veterinarian rescued a horse that was trapped upside down in a ditch in San Bernardino County.
Fire officials say a rider was on the horse trying to travel up the side of a ravine Tuesday in Hesperia when the animal fell and ended up on its back in the ditch, estimated to be about four feet deep.
The Los Angeles Times reports (about 20 firefighters including an animal rescue team were called.
Capt. Jay Hausman says a veterinarian was also brought in to tranquilize the horse while firefighters lifted the animal onto a hoisting device and worked to free it from the trench.
