What triggered California’s 7.0 earthquake — and why aftershocks could hit San Andreas Fault
The Chronicle's HANNAH HAGEMANN, KURTIS ALEXANDER: "A major earthquake that sent reverberations through Northern California could mark the beginning of an active period of quakes, scientists warn.
“There are going to be aftershocks; you don’t have a magnitude-7.0 without them,” seismologist Lucy Jones said."
The California tsunami danger is real. The 7.0 earthquake is wake-up call to prepare
LAT's GRACE TOOHEY, KAREN GARCIA: "Fear, anxiety and confusion swept across the West Coast early Thursday when a rare tsunami warning was issued for parts of Northern California and southern Oregon following a magnitude 7 earthquake that hit about 55 miles off the shore of Eureka.
Evacuations were ordered. Sirens went off. Service was suspended on the Bay Area’s commuter rail through its underwater Transbay Tube."
Where are California’s tsunami hazard zones? Look up your address on this map
The Chronicle's TARA DUGGAN, SRIHARSHA DEVULAPALLI: "California’s tsunami warning on Thursday after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake off the Humboldt County coast was quickly canceled. But it was a reminder of the hazards facing residents and visitors along state beaches, harbors and certain low-lying neighborhoods near the shore – and the need to know where to go in the case of a tsunami.
The California Geological Survey has created maps showing tsunami hazard zones along the entire coast that are a helpful start. However, they were developed with an extreme event in mind, coming from a different location than Thursday’s quake. To help people know where to escape, the map projects where water might inundate the shoreline during a tsunami caused by a rare, but possible, gigantic earthquake in Alaska."
Newsom goes to Mexico border to counter Trump
CALMatters's LYNN LA: "Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday, railing against President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats and the economic damage a 25% tax on goods coming from Mexico would likely have on the binational region and the state.
“Is the president-elect embarrassed by his own leadership as it relates to what he often describes as his USMCA?” Newsom asked, referring to the free trade agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada. “Did he do something wrong with that agreement that now he wants to throw it out completely and impose a 25% tax increase on the American people?”"
Newsom touts California efforts on fentanyl at the border. Will it matter to Trump?
LAT's CONNOR SHEETS: "Each day, thousands of people drive or walk into the U.S. from Tijuana at Otay Mesa, a port of entry that is one of the most fortified and closely watched border checkpoints in the world. And yet one way or another, fentanyl keeps pouring through.
In recent years, the crossing and another at San Ysidro a few miles west have played a key role in America’s addiction crisis. Federal border authorities in San Diego seized about 11,400 pounds of illicit fentanyl last fiscal year, much of it at Otay Mesa."
What Trump’s nominations say about where trade and other economic policies might go
LAT's DON LEE: "Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominations have raised hopes that his trade and other economic actions will not be wildly disruptive or bring back inflation. But that could turn out to be wishful thinking.
Based on the record of his first term in the Oval Office and on his current statements of his intent, Trump’s second term may see a break from the largely bipartisan consensus that has shaped U.S. economic policy for more than 50 years."
Overview of local and state open meetings laws in California
Capitol Weekly's CHRIS MICHELI: "California has three types of open meetings laws that apply to local and state governmental entities. These laws, adopted over the years, apply to state agencies and departments, the Legislature, and local entities (including city councils and boards of supervisors).
These open meeting acts are generally referred to as “Bagley-Keene” (applying to state entities), “LOMA” (applying to the Legislature), and the “Brown Act” (applying to local entities). It is helpful to be aware of these laws in order to understand how to participate in local and state meetings of executive and legislative branch entities."
Kudos, criticism mark California stem cell agency as it turns 20
DAVID JENSEN in Capitol Weekly: "California’s $12 billion stem cell experiment turned 20 years old this fall, winning kudos from some patients and scientists but failing to fulfill the expectations of voters who thought they had created an enterprise that would lead quickly to revolutionary cures for cancer, heart disease, stroke and much more.
It was a grand dream in 2004 when Californians voted overwhelmingly to establish the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) in response to then-President George W. Bush’s tighter restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. Nobel Prize-winning scientists campaigned for the ballot initiative, Proposition 71, during a $35 million campaign that faced little opposition but was criticized for its hype."
UCSF to pay $15M to patient whose anesthesia was mixed with formaldehyde
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "A 42-year-old woman from Sonoma entered the emergency room at the UCSF hospital in 2021 with a swollen and bleeding fibroid in her uterus that required surgery. What followed was agony.
According to a lawyer for the woman and her husband, medics mistakenly mixed her anesthetic with a mislabeled cup on the same tray that contained formalin, a liquid form of the chemical formaldehyde, and injected it. She suffered burns to her pelvic muscle and tissue, nerve damage, loss of strength and mobility, and pain that still torments her three years later."
Education leaders should lean in to lessons from the pandemic (OP-ED)
JEFF RICE in Capitol Weekly: "According to a report by the Public Policy Institute of California, the federal government has allocated $31 billion in one-time aid to public schools since March 2020. Federal funds accounted for 23% of K–12 funding in 2020–21 and 11% in 2021–22. The amount of federal funding that went to public schools during this time was significantly more than during most non-recession years before the pandemic when the federal share ranged from 6% to 9%.
The pandemic and its fallout forced the traditional public education system to confront the need for systemic change. For many schools, the pandemic created a critical need for greater flexibility, focusing more on the needs of individual students, creating education delivery options beyond the classroom, and offering access to resources that were more relevant to student life skills and needs. The Personalized Learning model became front and center and students, parents, teachers, and administrators adapted by embracing flexible systems, approaches, and mindsets in education. This shift reinforced the idea that education should adapt to the learner, not the other way around."
Ballet opens doors for children to chase the joy of dance
EdSource's KAREN D'SOUZA: "Gabriela Rodriguez first glimpsed the magic of ballet in the third grade. The 7-year-old didn’t know a pirouette from a puppet when she first got tapped for the New Ballet School’s First Step program, which brings the joy of dance to low-income students in the San Jose Unified school district.
As a tiny tot, she loved to dance with her Wii every day after school. Now she’s 19 and studying Level 6, the highest level at the ballet school. The supple dancer with a sunny personality seems to float across the studio at a recent “Nutcracker” rehearsal, twirling like a spinning top."
Bay Area temperatures cooling down ahead of dynamic weather shift
The Chronicle's GREG PORTER: "Storms to the north, storms to the south, yet here we are in California — stationed under a resilient high-pressure system.
The ridge of high pressure dominating weather across the western U.S. this week will begin to feel the squeeze from two storm systems: one lingering across the Southwest and another developing in the Gulf of Alaska, which is expected to move into the Pacific Northwest over the weekend."
Feds in settlement talks with former contractor accused of fraud in S.F. Shipyard cleanup
The Chronicle's LAURA WAXMANN: "A decade-long legal fight between whistleblowers and the embattled former Navy contractor accused of fraud in the botched toxic cleanup of San Francisco’s Hunters Point Shipyard is headed toward resolution — at least partially.
Federal court records show that the U.S. Department of Justice is in the midst of settlement negotiations with Tetra Tech EC Inc., a subsidiary of global engineering firm Tetra Tech Inc., that was hired two decades ago to clean hazardous radiation and other toxins from the shipyard, a former Naval base located in the southeastern corner of the city. In 2018, the Justice Department joined a whistleblower case alleging that Tetra Tech EC cut corners in the cleanup by falsifying soil samples and faking data. The case had been pending against the contractor since 2013."
California voters wanted stricter penalties for crime. Can reformers find a new message?
LAT's JAMES QUEALLY, ANABEL SOSA: "Criminal justice reform advocates spent the summer warning that efforts to oust California’s progressive district attorneys and undo sentencing reforms would undermine a decade of work aimed at reducing mass incarceration, prioritizing rehabilitation and holding police accountable for excessive force.
Come November, voters didn’t listen."
L.A. County probation chief plans to quit as juvenile hall closure looms
LAT's REBECCA ELLIS, JAMES QUEALLY: "L.A. County’s chief probation officer said he plans to depart the troubled agency as a deadline to evacuate Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall approaches, sources said, potentially leaving more than 200 incarcerated youths with no place to go.
Probation chief Guillermo Viera Rosa sent a brief memo Wednesday to the county Board of Supervisors saying he planned to retire by the end of the year, according to several sources who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel matter."
After a tumultuous run, San Francisco set to close exorbitantly expensive homeless site
The Chronicle's MAGGIE ANGST: "San Francisco’s only safe parking site for homeless people living out of vehicles will close after three tumultuous years filled with legal disputes, code violations and extensive complaints from those living in and around the site.
The Bayview Vehicle Triage Center located in an underused parking lot in Candlestick Point will permanently shutter in early March — nine months before the city’s lease for the site was set to expire. Case managers will work with residents living in the site’s 30 vehicles over the coming months to transition them into permanent housing or shelter or provide them with other support such as vehicle repairs, according to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing."
$700-per-month S.F. sleeping pods lose approval over affordable housing dispute
The Chronicle's ROLAND LI: "San Francisco has rescinded its approval of $700 per month housing pods after ruling that the project didn’t meet the city’s affordable housing requirements, the developer’s latest setback in a year-long dispute.
The project, developed by Brownstone Shared Housing, converted a former downtown bank office at 12 Mint Plaza and aims to be affordable by design. But the city requires that all market-rate housing projects of 10 units or more set aside a portion of units to be restricted to low-income residents at a set price or pay a fee, which would total over $300,000 for the project."
