Regulators mull reversing $462M

increase in PG&E fire fines

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — California power regulators are weighing a recommendation to back off plans to fine Pacific Gas and Electric an additional $462 million over a series of deadly Northern California wildfires rather than risk that the harsher punishment might scuttle the utility’s plan to get out of bankruptcy.

The state’s Public Utilities Commission is mulling whether to pare the penalties faced by PG&E as the result of a proposed revision floated by one of agency’s five commissioners, Clifford Rechtschaffen. A document detailing the proposal was made public Monday.

In another development, PG&E announced it took steps to ensure it will not have to tap into a $13.5 billion fund set up for wildfire victims to pay a separate $4 million fine that will be imposed for the company’s guilty plea to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter stemming from a 2018 inferno triggered by its outdated electrical grid. Last week, PG&E disclosed its bankruptcy plan required that financial penalties for the crimes would come from the victims’ fund.

Police: Officer fatally shoots

armed man in East Baltimore

BALTIMORE (AP) — Two shootings in the streets of Baltimore just before Maryland’s stay-at-home directive took effect led to the fatal shooting of an armed man by a police officer.

A report in The Baltimore Sun said the officer has shot and killed four other people in the past 10 years.

The department’s gunfire detection system alerted to shots being fired around 6 p.m. Monday in East Baltimore, Commissioner Michael Harrison said at a news conference.

Responding officers encountered an armed man who they believed had been firing a weapon at a group of people who were accused of wounding another man earlier that evening, according to Harrison.

“This all stems from an argument that turned bad where one person was shot,” Harrison said, according to The Sun. The suspect “was running down the street firing at that group.”

An officer shot him, and the man later died at a hospital, the commissioner said. Police had not released the man’s identity Tuesday evening, and a department spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.