Grandparenting on the rise in California,
U.S.
Nearly 500,000 children in California are being raised in
households headed by their grandparents, a number that has been
rising steadily, a UC researcher reports in the March-April issue
of California Agriculture.
Nationwide, 5 percent of children under 18 were being raised in
grandparent-headed households in 1990, a 53 percent increase from
1970 (2000 data is not yet available for analysis). In California,
the rate was even higher with an estimated 6.4 percent of children
living in grandparent-headed households in 1990.
“The conditions faced by many of these grandparents are
dire, and support services are usually not geared toward older,
parents,” says Mary Blackburn, UC Cooperative Extension
advisor in Alameda County. “You can’t talk about
parenting to a 75-year-old the same way that you talk to a teen
parent.”
Through the 1990s, UCCE received numerous requests for
information on children being raised by their grandparents,
Blackburn says, but the state-specific census data had not been
compiled and reviewed. Interim surveys conducted by the U.S. Census
confirm the upward trend.
Hollywood strike may hurt L.A. economy
Lengthy back-to-back strikes by Hollywood writers and actors
could send the nation’s second largest city into an economic
slowdown, Mayor Richard Riordan said Thursday.
Riordan unveiled a study that featured worst-case predictions of
a nearly $6.9 billion loss to the local economy during dual
walkouts equaling the length of the longest similar Hollywood
strikes ““ five months by writers and three months by
performers.
“Make no mistake about it, a prolonged strike would plunge
our city and county into recession,” Riordan told a press
conference.
The mayor said he commissioned the study to measure the economic
impact of a walkout by the Writers Guild of America and the two
performer unions, the Screen Actors Guild and the American
Federation of Television & Radio Artists.
Riordan said he hoped the findings would force negotiators for
both the unions and the studios to sacrifice some of their own
interests in favor of the common good.
The nonprofit Los Angeles County Development Corp. has
previously said a work stoppage would mean losses of about $457
million a week for Hollywood and related businesses in Southern
California.
The new study presents a slightly less dire outlook, predicting
weekly losses of between $312 million and $366 million, depending
on the length of the strikes. The report was compiled by The Milken
Institute, an economic think tank, and Sebago Associates Inc., an
economic and public policy consulting firm.
The mayor said L.A. can expect Hollywood strikes to cost jobs
both inside and outside the entertainment industry.
Panel votes to rename library for Riordan
The Library Commission voted Thursday to rename the historic
downtown Central Library after Mayor Richard Riordan.
The Riordan-appointed commission’s vote was 3-1, with one
abstention, to support the name change despite allegations that
there was a lack of public input.
The landmark library, which opened in 1926, will now be known as
the Richard J. Riordan Central Library.
The mayor said he was “almost teary-eyed about that. I
can’t think of anything that I would rather have named after
me. I love books, I love libraries and I’m
thrilled.”
Hours at the city’s eight regional libraries expanded from
48 to 60 a week during Riordan’s second term in office. Hours
at most of the city’s 59 community library branches expanded
from 40 to 52.
Compiled from Daily Bruin wire reports.