COVID-19 unemployment scam could hit $2B, bank tells California lawmakers
Sac Bee's DALE KASLER/DAVID LIGHTMAN: "In late November, a group of California district attorneys made the stunning disclosure that the state had disbursed as much as $1 billion in fraudulent pandemic unemployment assistance to state prisoners and their accomplices.
Now the bank that handed out the COVID-19 money says the amount of fraudulent aid distributed by California since the pandemic hit could be twice as much.
In a letter to state legislators, Bank of America said Monday that it has uncovered fraudulent activity covering more than 345,000 different accounts."
Power shutoffs hit SoCal as dangerous fire weather returns
LA Times's HAYLEY SMITH: "Southern California Edison preemptively shut off power to more than 54,000 customers by Monday night as widespread fire weather conditions ramp up across the region.
More than 150,000 additional customers are facing potential shutoffs as well.
The National Weather Service has issued red flag warnings — indicating conditions for wildfires to start — in portions of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties through noon Tuesday, with the agency warning residents to be prepared to evacuate."
The Chronicle's JILL TUCKER: "California’s public schools would be forced to reopen when case counts dip and county officials give the go-ahead under proposed state legislation by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting.
The bill would require schools to resume in-person learning within two weeks of their county moving into red, orange or yellow tiers. Most counties have recently returned to the most stringent purple tier due to the new surge.
The bill, if passed, would go into effect March 1."
US Attorney in Sacramento latest official to test positive for COVID-19
Sac Bee's SAM STANTON: "U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott has tested positive for COVID-19, but says he feels mostly fine and hopes to be cleared to return to his office late this week.
Scott tested positive last Thursday, following an awards ceremony at his Sacramento office for Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams that was attended by two Abrams aides and five officials from Scott’s office.
Everyone attending the ceremony wore masks during the event, Scott said Monday, and kept distance from each other except for a photo. Individuals who attended the ceremony are now working from home as a precaution, Scott said, adding that his only symptom is some fatigue."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: California lawmakers have long COVID-19 to-do list as they reconvene in Sacramento -- LA Times's JOHN MYERS; Shutdown will last through Christmas as deaths explode past 20,000 -- LA Times's LUKE MONEY/RONG-GONG LIN II/SEAN GREENE; Coronavirus hospitalizations have hit records in these Bay Area counties under lockdown -- The Chronicle's KELLIE HWANG; A COVID shutdown in Sacramento is expected soon. There's also good news on the horizon -- Sac Bee's TONY BIZJAK
Reeps sound the klaxon over Becerra's nomination to Biden health dept
LA Times's JENNIFER HABERKORN: "Senate Republicans raised red flags Monday over President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to nominate California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, although it is uncertain whether that could grow into enough opposition to scuttle the confirmation.
At least five Republicans objected to Becerra’s nomination, citing his endorsement of a government-run “Medicare for all” healthcare system, his support for abortion rights or his relative lack of healthcare expertise and experience running an expansive government agency.
“I have serious concerns about Xavier Becerra’s ability to lead Health and Human Services,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who also pointed to $1 million in political donations Becerra has received from “the big healthcare industry.” The figure was calculated by the OpenSecrets.org website, which counted $1.2 million in political donations over the course of Becerra’s career from individual healthcare professionals and political advocacy groups that represent them."
GIL DURAN in the Sac Bee: "As California attorney general, Xavier Becerra resisted transparency, threatened legal action against journalists, ducked police reforms and declined to investigate the police killing of an unarmed Latino man.
I was writing a column about why he would have been a bad pick for United States attorney general when the news hit: President-elect Joe Biden had instead nominated Becerra for secretary of Health and Human Services.
Becerra and I were scheduled to talk for 20 minutes last Thursday, but we jousted for an hour. I made it clear that, given his record in California, a Biden decision to appoint him AG would essentially be a middle finger to the national movement for police reform."
Newsom scouts Attorney General nominee in wake of Becerra nomination to Biden's cabinet
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "California Attorney General Xavier Becerra transformed his job into one with a national platform — which is why some top state Democrats working in Washington are interested in the position now that President-elect Joe Biden has picked Becerra to be secretary of health and human services.
Among the most-recognized names are two Democrats who carved national reputations as leaders of the anti-President Trump resistance: House Intelligence chair Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank and East Bay Rep. Eric Swalwell, who serves on both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees. Both are on the long list of possible appointees Gov. Gavin Newsom can choose from to fill the job if Becerra is confirmed by the Senate and leaves Sacramento with two years left in his term.
Biden’s selection gives Newsom the possibility of making sweeping changes in California’s power structure. He was already poised to name a replacement for Vice President-elect Kamala Harris when she resigns her Senate seat. Speculation has centered on California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, which would open his job for a pick named by the governor."
Momentum builds in Congress for more COVID stimulus. How much would the unemployed get?
Sac Bee's DAVID LIGHTMAN: "An extra $300 a week for eligible unemployed Californians is getting serious consideration from Republicans and Democrats in Washington as they push hard for a compromise economic aid plan.
While details are yet to be worked out — and disagreements could still hamstring any final result — a group of bipartisan lawmakers is expected to unveil early this week specifics of a $908 billion economic stimulus plan that could add $300 in jobless benefits to weekly unemployment payments through the end of March.
Congressional leaders have not agreed to details. But “there is momentum” for a compromise relief package, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday."
READ MORE related to Economy/Reopening: A total restaurant apocalypse is coming. But it's not inevitable -- The Chronicle's SOLEIL HO
First child in California dies from flu complications in Placer County
Sac Bee's MOLLY SULLIVAN: "A Placer County child died recently from complications from influenza, county public health said Monday. The child is the first pediatric flu death of 2020 in the state of California.
“The child had underlying health conditions, which did not include COVID-19,” the county said in a news release.
Despite the rise in COVID-19 cases, flu activity is low this year, a trend public health officials attribute to widespread use of masks, hand-washing and social distancing."
Scott Wiener tries -- again -- to allow SF, Oakland and LA to open safe drug use site
The Chronicle's TRISHA THADANI: "State Sen. Scott Wiener is trying — once again — to allow San Francisco to open a safe injection site, where people can use drugs in a safe and supervised setting.
It’s currently illegal to open a such a site in California. The bill, which Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced late Monday, would allow San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland to open a safe injection site. The pilot program would sunset Jan. 1, 2027.
Mayor London Breed and members of the Board of Supervisors support opening safe drug use sites in San Francisco, where overdoses have skyrocketed this year. The city is on track to lose two people a day to the crisis, which shows no signs of slowing as the pandemic disrupts city services and isolates people from their communities."
On first day as LA County DA, Gascon eliminates bail, remakes sentencing rules
LA Times's JAMES QUEALLY: "George Gascón embarked Monday on a plan to reimagine criminal prosecutions in Los Angeles County, announcing sweeping policy changes he’ll make as district attorney that include an end to cash bail, a ban on prosecutors seeking enhanced prison sentences and showing leniency to many low-level offenders.
The dramatic reversals of deeply ingrained, traditional law enforcement strategies in the nation’s largest district attorney’s office, also will include a review of thousands of old cases to determine whether lighter sentences or prisoner releases should be sought, Gascón said in a speech during his swearing-in ceremony.
“I recognize for many this is a new path … whether you are a protester, a police officer or a prosecutor, I ask you to walk with me. I ask you to join me on this journey,” he said. “We can break the multigenerational cycles of violence, trauma and arrest and recidivism that has led America to incarcerate more people than any other nation.”"
SF supes considering studying UBI program
The Chronicle's NORA MISHANEC: "A proposal to begin studying a guaranteed income program in San Francisco is up for a vote Tuesday before the Board of Supervisors.
As with a similar program city officials enacted in Stockton, the measure’s proponents said a guaranteed income program could help provide much-needed economic mobility and help to lift people out of poverty.
The board’s Rules Committee approved the measure unanimously on Monday, setting up a vote before all 11 supervisors Tuesday."
Grand jury indicts SFPD officer in connection with 2019 shooting
The Chronicle's MEGAN CASSIDY: "A grand jury has indicted a rookie San Francisco police officer who fired a single shot at a man who had attacked him and his field training officer, and who was apparently trying to stand up after the training officer shot him multiple times.
Christopher Flores, one of the two San Francisco police officers who shot and seriously injured 25-year-old Jamaica Hampton last year after Hampton attacked the officers, has become the department’s second rookie officer to be criminally charged in an on-duty use-of-force case in a matter of weeks. The officer who first shot Hampton as Hampton appeared to close in on him with a bottle in his hand was not charged in the Mission District shooting.
Hampton, who survived the shooting, was also indicted by the grand jury after surveillance footage and police body cameras showed him attacking police with a glass bottle just before the shooting."
Chuck Yeager, first pilot to break the sound barrier, dies at 97
LA Times's STEVE CHAWKINS/ERIC MALNIC: "After test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, he confessed to the highly un-Yeager-like emotion of fear.
“I was scared,” he wrote in a memoir, “knowing that many of my colleagues thought I was doomed to be blasted to pieces by an invisible brick wall in the sky. But I noticed that the faster I got, the smoother the ride. Suddenly, the Mach needle began to fluctuate, then tipped right off the scale.”
For 18 seconds on Oct. 14, 1947, Yeager was supersonic — a feeling he later likened to “a poke through Jell-O.” The achievement made Yeager an aeronautic legend — “the foremost in the Olympus,” according to author Tom Wolfe, “the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff.”"
Mysterious monoliths on the move: New one appears in SLO
LA Times's HAYLEY SMITH: "The curious case of the moving monolith has a new wrinkle as yet another mysterious silver structure has appeared in Southern California, this time in the Los Padres National Forest.
The latest installation is the second shiny statue to pop up in San Luis Obispo County after one appeared — and quickly vanished — from the top of a hiking trail in Atascadero last week.
San Luis Obispo resident Matt Carver was among a group who made the most recent discovery Saturday morning. He and several friends were camping at a site near Arroyo Grande when they came across the gleaming gargantuan structure while shooting drone footage."
Biden picks Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense, would be first Black leader of Pentagon
AP: "President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of Defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon.
Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as Defense secretary. Biden also had considered Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of Homeland Security.
The impending nomination of Austin was confirmed by four people with knowledge of the pick who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the selection hadn’t been formally announced."