What Californians should do now to prepare for a possible spring Omicron BA.2 surge
LA Times, RONG-GONG LIN II: "Is California doing enough to prepare for a potential increase in cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.2 this spring?
California has made great strides in improving access to vaccinations and testing, but officials say there’s plenty of room for improvement, and that doing so is essential, given concerning trends elsewhere in the country, especially in the Northeast.
The Omicron subvariant BA.2 — about 30% to 60% more transmissible than the currently dominant Omicron subvariant — is being detected more frequently, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And, even though the weekly count of new coronavirus cases nationally has been declining or flat, there are some hints that they may be starting to rise in New York City."
READ MORE NEWS RELATED TO COVID-19: Can the Bay Area avoid a BA.2 COVID surge? -- The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI; Biden press secretary has COVID-19, won't travel to Europe -- AP, DARLENE SUPERVILLE
COVID-19 variants in California: What is BA.2 or ‘stealth omicron’ and when did it arrive?
HANH TRUONG, SacBee: “Coronavirus cases are rising overseas, bringing concerns that California will follow suit despite the decline of reported infections since early January. According to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard, infections are escalating in Europe and Southeast Asia.
In the U.K., test positivity rates have increased about 37% the last seven days, as of Monday, due to the BA.2 omicron subvariant. The hike could also be attributed to the roll back of safety measures and waning immunity from vaccines, according to the BBC.
“Over the last year or so, what happens in the U.K. usually happens here a few weeks later,” White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told NPR. “And right now, the U.K. is seeing somewhat of a rebound in cases.”
As it enters a third year, California’s drought is strangling the farming industry
SCOTT WILSON, Washington Post: “The school is disappearing.
Westside Elementary opened its doors nearly a century ago here in the San Joaquin Valley, among the most productive agricultural regions on earth. As recently as 1995, nearly 500 students filled its classrooms. Now 160 students attend and enrollment is falling fast.
This was where the children of farmworkers learned to read and write, often next to the children of the farm owners who employed their parents. But the farms are also vanishing, as hundreds of thousands of acres of rich soil are left unplanted each year.”
Newsom tax returns show his income dipped to $1.47 million in 2020
The Chronicle, SOPHIA BOLLAG: "California Gov. Gavin Newsom and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom reported $1.47 million in income and paid $480,223 in taxes in 2020, according to tax returns published Tuesday by the secretary of state.
That puts the couple at a federal tax rate of 32%. Their total income went down from 2019, Newsom’s first year in office, when they reported $1.7 million in income.
In 2020, the couple reported income from businesses in Newsom’s blind trust, his salary as governor and Siebel Newsom’s documentary production company. Newsom, who made his fortune in the wine industry, placed the hospitality businesses he founded in a blind trust when he took office. The family friend who manages the trust is legally barred from informing Newsom about the businesses in the trust, which are not identified by name in his tax returns."
Inspector general identifies 41 sheriff’s deputies who allegedly belong to gang-like groups
LA Times, ALENE TCHEKMEDYIAN: "The top watchdog for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has identified more than 40 alleged members of gang-like groups of deputies that operate out of two sheriff’s stations.
In a letter Monday, Inspector General Max Huntsman said his office has compiled a partial list that includes 11 deputies who allegedly belong to the Banditos, which operate out of the East L.A. sheriff’s station, and 30 alleged Executioners from the Compton sheriff’s station.
He wrote that the list is based on information gleaned from investigations conducted by the Sheriff’s Department. Huntsman did not name the deputies and said his office has identified additional possible members from other sources."
Newsom’s new push for homeless mental health treatment lacks details. That has some worried
LA Times, HANNAH WILEY: "At the heart of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to compel people into court-ordered treatment for mental illness and addiction is a sense of urgency to solve a decades-old crisis festering on California’s streets — even if it means building the plane as it flies.
“We’re coming up with a completely new paradigm, a new approach, a different pathway, and it’s consistent with our values,” Newsom said earlier this month when he announced the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court.
Newsom has not provided a price tag for how much CARE Court could cost, but it would likely be paid for with a portion of the projected $14 billion he wants to spend on addressing homelessness over the next several years. He also pledged swift action in the coming weeks to finalize the proposal and move it through the Legislature."
Judge confirmed as 1st Latina on California Supreme Court
BRIAN MELLEY, AP: “A San Diego appeals court judge who is the daughter of Mexican immigrants was confirmed Tuesday as the first Latina to serve on the California Supreme Court.
Justice Patricia Guerrero was approved by a 3-0 vote of the Commission on Judicial Appointments to fill the vacancy left by Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who stepped down last year.
Guerrero, 50, grew up in the agricultural Imperial Valley and has worked as prosecutor, law firm partner, Superior Court judge and is on the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal. She will take her seat on the court after being sworn in later by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who nominated her.”
California community college officials eye new rule forcing districts to hand over data
MICHAEL BURKE: “California community college system officials are having trouble collecting data from local colleges across the state on key issues like enrollment, campus policing and application fraud. And now, the state chancellor’s office wants the board of governors to force local colleges to respond.
The chancellor’s office overseeing California’s 116 community colleges plans to do that by creating a new state regulation that would require local colleges to respond within 10 days when the chancellor’s office asks for data or other information.
The community college system, the nation’s largest with about 1.5 million students, has been unable in recent semesters to fully report enrollment at its colleges. The system’s inability to accurately report enrollment surfaced following the onset of the pandemic, when community colleges in California and nationwide saw double-digit enrollment losses. System officials have attributed much of the issue to challenges counting certain students taking noncredit online courses.”
Health officials see bright future in poop surveillance as a COVID tracking tool
ANNA MARIA BARRY-JESTER, SacBee: “One of Patrick Green’s first orders of business each day is to open a tap and fill a bottle with sludge.
A utilities plant operator in Modesto, Green’s primary job is to help keep the city’s sewers flowing and its wastewater treated to acceptable levels of safety. But in recent months, he and his colleagues have added COVID-19 sleuthing to their job description.
At the treatment plant where Modesto’s sewer pipes converge, larger items, ranging from not-supposed-to-be-flushed baby wipes to car parts, are filtered out. What remains is ushered into a giant vat, where the solids settle to the bottom. It’s from that three-feet-deep dark sludge that researchers siphon samples in their search for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.”
Fire season in Northern California could be coming early again
JAKE HUTCHISON, Mercury News: “Each year in California seems to get dryer and dryer, with an ongoing drought and an ever-expanding fire season.
The 2022 fire season is shaping up to continue the pattern.
Fire season officially begins when the various jurisdictions throughout Northern California begin staffing up and reopening airbases. These talks typically begin in spring but can vary based on weather conditions and other factors.”
Yosemite reservations begin Wednesday; here’s how to get one
PAUL ROGERS, Mercury News: “Worried about unprecedented traffic jams in Yosemite National Park this summer because of multiple construction projects, Yosemite officials announced last month that from May 20 to Sept. 30, they plan to limit the number of visitors to Yosemite by requiring online reservations to enter.
It’s the first time in the park’s 157-year history that day-use reservations have been required for a reason other than COVID.
The reservation system goes live at 8 a.m. Pacific Time on Wednesday.”
California senators Feinstein, Padilla take on a new SCOTUS nominee amid shadows of past confirmations
The Chronicle, TAL KOPAN: "Sen. Dianne Feinstein began her questioning of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Tuesday in much the same way that she’s handled other recent high-court hopefuls.
But this time, the context was much different.
This time, Feinstein is of the same party as the president who nominated the aspiring justice, and as a result, her role in the Judiciary Committee hearings is largely to make Jackson look good and provide some cover amid tough questioning from Republicans. Fellow California Democrat Sen. Alex Padilla will get his turn to do the same later on Tuesday."
96-year-old who survived four Nazi concentration camps is killed in Ukraine
AP: "Germany’s parliament on Tuesday paid tribute to Boris Romanchenko, who survived several Nazi concentration camps during World War II only to be killed last week during an attack in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. He was 96.
The Buchenwald concentration camp memorial said on Monday that Romanchenko, who survived Buchenwald as well as camps at Peenemuende, Dora and Bergen-Belsen, was killed on Friday. It said that, according to his granddaughter, the multistory building where he lived was hit by a projectile.
Romanchenko was dedicated to keeping alive the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice president of the International Buchenwald-Dora Committee, the memorial said."
READ MORE NEWS RELATED TO THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE 2022: Ukrainians go on counteroffensive near capital even as Russia moves into strategic port -- LA Times, PATRICK J MCCONNELL/JAWEED KALEEM/LAURA KING
The 5 leading candidates for L.A. mayor finally meet. Here’s what to watch for
LA Times, JULIA WICK: "Will a debate with Rick Caruso look markedly different from what we’ve seen before?
That will be the question Tuesday night as the five leading Los Angeles mayoral candidates take the stage at USC’s Bovard Auditorium, with Caruso for the first time joining Rep. Karen Bass, City Atty. Mike Feuer and Councilmen Kevin de León and Joe Buscaino.
The debate — sponsored by The Times, USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future and Fox 11 Los Angeles — will be moderated by Times columnist Erika D. Smith and Fox 11 anchor Elex Michaelson."
Bay Area heat wave: Temperatures are rising to 20 degrees above normal. Here’s how long it’ll last
The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "Temperatures across the Bay Area were expected to soar up to 20 degrees above normal through Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.
Weather conditions were expected to bring temperatures up into the 80s in the Bay Area’s interior valleys Tuesday and Wednesday.
While the heat wasn’t expected to pose dangers to most people, NWS Meteorologist Roger Gass advised the Bay Area to keep vulnerable people and pets out of parked cars, “because these temperatures will be warm enough to be potentially deadly for those kind of
The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN: "As engineers gradually expand a suicide net beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, trauma surgeons in Marin are wrapping up what they hope will be the last report on people who survive a brutal 220-foot fall from the structure.
Their research, which is undergoing peer review, offers a glimpse into the grim but intricate triage system used to pull people from the water and keep them alive. Few can withstand a crash at freeway speeds into the frigid waters of the bay, but doctors and emergency responders have managed to boost the odds of survival — from 2% historically, to 3% since 2010.
Over the last 22 years, 26 people have exhibited signs of life after plummeting from the rail and breaking the water’s surface at 75 mph. Fourteen of those victims survived, according to the report, written by physicians at MarinHealth Medical Center, the hospital that now treats people rescued after a bridge suicide attempt."
GOP blasted for ‘shameful’ critical race theory tweets targeting Jackson
LA Times STAFF: "Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, begins two days of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
The 22 committee members will each have 30 minutes to ask questions. If there is a second round of questioning, each senator will have 20 minutes.
Jackson won’t be in the hearing room on Thursday, when legal experts and representatives of the American Bar Assn. testify on her legal record."
Disney had a tight-lipped employee culture. Then Florida happened
LA Times, RYAN FAUGHNDER: "On Tuesday morning, an extraordinary scene unfolded on the Burbank lot of Walt Disney Co.
About 100 Disney employees gathered outside the Roy E. Disney Animation Building, known for its giant Sorcerer’s Apprentice hat, hoisting signs saying “Disney Say Gay” and "#disneydobetter.” They posed for a group photo at 9:30 a.m. before heading over to rally in front of the lot’s Alameda Avenue gate.
“We came out today to stand in support of our queer employees and their families, and it’s been amazing to see everyone,” said Nora Rogers, a production supervisor at Walt Disney Animation Studios. Rogers, who helped organize the morning walkout, wore a “Gay & Tired” shirt."