Californians Flee the Coast to Inland Cities in a Mass Pandemic-Era Exodus
CHRISTINE MAI-DUC and PAUL OVERBERG, Wall Street Journal: "Since moving out of the Los Angeles area, Eva and Randy Fluker say they miss summer weekends at the beach, monthly trips to Disneyland and their favorite Mexican food and ramen joints.
They don’t miss trying to squeeze their work life, two stuck-at-home kids and Ms. Fluker’s 98-year-old grandmother into a 1,700 square-foot house in Norwalk, Calif. They joined a pandemic-era exodus of Californians to the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area known as the Inland Empire, the biggest movement of people in the most populous state in America.
The Flukers followed some quarter-million others who last year moved east to the 27,000 square-mile swath of Southern California that stretches from the Los Angeles County border to Arizona and Nevada.
Authorities identify source of oil sheen off Huntington Beach
LA Times, MATTHEW ORMSETH: "A day after an oil sheen was spotted off Huntington Beach, authorities believed they had identified and contained the source: a leak from the damaged area of a pipeline that ruptured in October, spilling an estimated 25,000 gallons of oil into the Pacific.
About 9:30 a.m. Saturday, divers hired by a unified command established in response to the Oct. 2 spill were preparing to do a routine inspection of the damaged pipeline when they spotted the oil sheen on the water, said Eric Laughlin, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The sheen covered an area of roughly 30 feet by 70 feet. Underwater, the divers noticed small oil droplets near the damaged section of the pipeline, which since the spill has been wrapped in a material called Syntho-Glass, Laughlin said. The divers removed the wrap and replaced it with a new one, he said Sunday."
Judge says Devin Nunes’ family payment agreement in Iowa lawsuit is not ‘suspicious’
GILLIAN BRASSIL, McClatchy: "The way that Congressman Devin Nunes’ family is financing its defamation lawsuit against a journalist and magazine company over a story about their Iowa farm does not raise concerns, a federal judge wrote this week.
Magistrate Judge Mark Roberts of Iowa’s Northern District Court wanted to know if the congressman was involved in funding the family’s case, he wrote in a ruling last month that made the family share how they were paying their legal fees.
Roberts wrote that he found “nothing suspicious or untoward in the documents produced” that detail how the family is paying their attorney, Steven Biss, and other firms in the lawsuit."
Fire danger lingers in SoCal, lacking downpours that hit Bay Area
The Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "While record amounts of rain have greatly reduced the risk of wildfire in some Northern California regions, the southern reaches of the state are not so lucky. Southern California anticipates the return of dangerous fire weather for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Residents of Los Angeles and Ventura counties have been on alert since early Sunday when strong Santa Ana winds began battering the region with warm, dry gusts. While the winds were forecast to diminish by Monday afternoon, the National Weather Service foresees the Santa Anas will return Wednesday and last through the end of the week.
“That is the busiest travel day of the year,” said Rich Thompson, National Weather Service meteorologist at the Los Angeles-Oxnard station. “Many people will be traveling up Interstate 5. There could be sparks from cars and trucks. It’s something we’re watching.” Sparks from vehicles are often the cause of fires that start in dry brush, with sparks carried on the wind to spread the flames."
Latino, Asian American, LGBTQ activists: They want to shape California's congressional maps
LA Times, SEEMA MEHTA: "Activists are urging the creation of a congressional district that links LGBTQ populations in Long Beach and coastal northern Orange County. Civil-rights groups say a plan to split up a Los Angeles-area district — the most heavily Latino in the nation — violates the Voting Rights Act. Asian Americans warn that a proposal to carve the San Gabriel Valley into pieces would dilute their voice at a time of terrifying violence against their community.
These are just a few of the concerns that an independent state commission is weighing as it races to complete the once-every-decade redrawing of congressional districts by Christmas.
“Our goal is fair maps, and fair maps mean we must follow the process that is before us, that we do it in a transparent manner and the public is meaningfully engaged and has an opportunity to influence the maps and line drawing in a public manner,” said Pedro Toledo, a member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission and a no party preference voter from Petaluma. “And that’s what makes it a little bit messy.”
How’s California doing vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds for COVID-19?
JOHN WOOLFOLK and HARRIET BLAIR ROWAN, Mercury News: "In the nearly three weeks since U.S. regulators cleared COVID-19 vaccines for kids ages 5-11, more than one in 10 of those children in California have rolled up their sleeves for the shots.
But those kids are concentrated in the state’s urban coastal counties. In the Bay Area, about one out of four kids in the biggest counties have already had their first shot, and an astounding 40% in Marin, once a hotbed of resistance to child vaccination. But far fewer in rural areas have been inoculated.
State health officials see vaccinating kids as key to blunting a feared winter infection surge, and some school districts, including Oakland, will require older students to be vaccinated to attend class starting in January."
Supply-Chain Problems Show Signs of Easing
STELLA YIFAN XIE, JON EMONT and ALISTAIR MacDONALD, Wall Street Journal: "Global supply-chain woes are beginning to recede, but shipping, manufacturing and retail executives say that they don’t expect a return to more-normal operations until next year and that cargo will continue to be delayed if Covid-19 outbreaks disrupt key distribution hubs.
In Asia, Covid-related factory closures, energy shortages and port-capacity limits have eased in recent weeks. In the U.S., major retailers say they have imported most of what they need for the holidays. Ocean freight rates have retreated from record levels.
Still, executives and economists say strong consumer demand for goods in the West, ongoing port congestion in the U.S., shortages of truck drivers and elevated global freight rates continue to hang over any recovery. The risk of more extreme weather and flare-ups of Covid-19 cases can also threaten to clog up supply chains again."
ANNIE VALNSHTEIN, Chronicle: "On a recent foggy night in San Francisco’s Richmond District, a group of about a dozen people bent their knees and prepared their fists to assume a fighting pose.
Master Jeff Chow’s booming voice led the Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy class through a sequence of blocking and striking moves to practice palming, elbowing, kneeing and kicking — mimicking a confrontation with a would-be attacker all of them hoped they would never actually have to encounter.
With San Francisco mired in an intensifying debate over crime and public safety, the lessons taught by instructors like Chow are in greater demand. Several operators of self-defense schools and people who sell security equipment said they are seeing an uptick in business."
READ MORE on smash-and-grab: Packs of thieves hit Walnut Creek store, Hayward mall. Are they connected to Union Square heists? -- JESSICA FLOZRES, JULIE JOHNSON and CATHERINE HO, Chronicle
In Kenosha and beyond, guns become more common on US streets
AP, MORGAN LEE: "As Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted in two killings that he said were self-defense, armed civilians patrolled the streets near the Wisconsin courthouse with guns in plain view.
In Georgia, testimony in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers showed that armed patrols were commonplace in the neighborhood where Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, was chased down by three white men and shot.
The two proceedings sent startling new signals about the boundaries of self-defense as more guns emerge from homes amid political and racial tensions and the advance of laws that ease permitting requirements and expand the allowable use of force."
LA Times, BEN BRAZIL: "Irvine has joined other Orange County cities using teams of medical workers to respond to mental-health-related calls for service rather than relying on police officers.
The effort is meant to free up police and decrease violent confrontations between law enforcement and people experiencing homelessness or mental health issues. Many have criticized police responses to mental health calls because they can escalate tensions and provoke violent episodes.
The Irvine City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a yearlong pilot program, which will run daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with Be Well OC."