California's computer glitch causing widespread confusion for counties, business and schools
The Chronicle's DUSTIN GARDINER/ERIN ALLDAY: "Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom has said the state’s response would be guided by data. Now, a lack of accurate data has thrown that response into limbo.
A bug in California’s electronic system for collecting infectious disease data is causing mass confusion over the state coronavirus response at a time when public health, education and business leaders already are struggling to plan for an uncertain future.
State officials revealed the computer problem Tuesday, and admitted that it has led to cases being underreported in many if not all counties. Even though the problem apparently started last month, Newsom cited some of the now-questionable data Monday as reason for cautious optimism after more than a month of surging numbers."
GSK set to face his victims, life sentence
Sac Bee's SAM STANTON: "Judgment Day for confessed Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist Joseph James DeAngelo begins Tuesday, Aug. 18, with an unusual, weeklong court hearing in which his victims and their families are expected to deliver a series of emotional declarations about how his brutal, 13-year crime spree has upended their lives.
The hearing in Sacramento Superior Court is set to begin in the morning in the downtown courthouse’s largest courtroom with victim impact statements, and Judge Michael Bowman already has said he will place no limits on how long victims are allowed to speak.
The first statements are expected to come from women DeAngelo raped in Sacramento during a reign of terror as the East Area Rapist from 1976 through 1978, and officials plan to allow the victims and their families into court to speak in separate groups."
Scammers could be targeting unemployment benefits in California, state warns
LA Times's PATRICK MCGREEVY: "Many Californians are anxiously waiting for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, but James Myers was not happy when he received a letter from the state notifying him that his application for assistance had been approved.
The Folsom tech engineer has a job and has not applied for financial assistance from the California Employment Development Department, putting him among the thousands of Americans affected each year by unemployment fraud, a crime experts say is on the rise along with job losses across the country in an economy battered by the spread of coronavirus.
“I freaked out because somebody’s obviously got my identity,” said Myers, who works for Micron Technology, Inc. “I jumped all over it. I canceled things and put a credit hold on. I filed a police report."
A mask in every mailbox? California Dems up pressure campaign in Congress
The Chronicle's TAL KOPAN: "California Democrats in Congress are increasing pressure on their leaders to get all Americans to wear masks to fight the coronavirus pandemic — including by mailing them to every household.
Reps. Ro Khanna of Fremont and Adam Schiff of Burbank wrote a letter this week to House and Senate leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, asking them to include a free-masks-for-all program in a coronavirus relief package that is now the subject of intense negotiations on Capitol Hill. Khanna and Schiff have proposed similar bills to distribute free masks through the Postal Service.
They held a live talk Wednesday night on Instagram to promote their efforts, acknowledging they face a tall task but expressing some optimism their provisions could make it into a legislative deal."
After first being spared, rural California now being ravaged by the coronavirus
LA Times's ALEX WIGGLESWORTH/RONG-GONG LIN II: "It was once said that California’s coronavirus pandemic was hitting dense urban areas the hardest.
Now, it’s rural, agricultural areas that are among the most severely affected.
“The epidemic is moving from urban Latino populations to rural Latino populations,” Dr. George Rutherford, epidemiologist and infectious-diseases expert at UC San Francisco, said Wednesday.
The risk factors are the same: low-income essential workers who live in crowded housing and must leave home to work and earn money and who may be less likely to speak up to call attention to problematic workplace safety conditions."
From veepstakes to Cabinet? Where Biden's running mate contenders might land if he wins
LA Times's MICHAEL FINNEGAN: "All but one of the women Joe Biden might pick as his running mate will end up disappointed, but already a new guessing game has started: What other roles could they fill in his administration?
Most of the women are Democratic Party stars with expertise in public policy, making them contenders for jobs in Biden’s administration should the former vice president unseat President Trump. They are U.S. senators and House members. They include former prosecutors, an ex-police chief and a foreign policy expert. Some are on the front lines of responding to the coronavirus pandemic and the protests against police brutality and racial discrimination.
“They all bring unique strengths,” said Kelly Dittmar, the research director at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics."
CalPERS chief's abrupt resignation preceded by conflict of interest questions
Sac Bee's WES VENTEICHER: "Questions regarding conflict-of-interest disclosures preceded the abrupt resignation of CalPERS Chief Investment Officer Yu Ben Meng on Wednesday, according to the pension fund’s board members.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System announced Meng’s immediate resignation in a late-night email after he had been on the job for less than two years.
“CalPERS has known about questions regarding Ben’s Fair Political Practices (Commission) disclosure filings,” Board President Henry Jones said in an emailed statement. “These are private personnel matters and already have been addressed according to our internal compliance protocols.”
Many of California's recent unemployment claims are people refiling after temp jobs, study finds
The Chronicle's DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "More than half of California jobless claims for the week ending July 25 were reopened claims by those who had previously reported losing a job, according to a new analysis by the California Policy Lab, an initiative that harnesses the expertise of academics from UCLA and UC Berkeley to address policy questions.
The study reveals that many people filing for unemployment in July likely also filed for unemployment earlier in the pandemic, were temporarily rehired, but had to file for unemployment again. In July, an average of 160,000 of these “additional claims” were filed each week, researchers said.
This means that even though the number of weekly initial unemployment claims began to climb back up in July, this increase can be almost entirely explained by additional claims, said Till von Wachter, a co-author of the analysis, UCLA economics professor and faculty director at the California Policy Lab."
Wildlife officials: Help deer stop congregating, as outbreak is killing them
The Chronicle's PETER FIMRITE: "A deadly disease that causes internal hemorrhaging is sweeping through the deer population in California, including several Bay Area counties where people have spotted drooling animals suffering from seizures and gripped by vomiting and diarrhea, wildlife veterinarians said Thursday.
The outbreak, called adenovirus hemorrhagic disease, has been confirmed in Napa, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Tehama and Yolo counties, but it may well have moved into other areas, said Brandon Munk, senior wildlife veterinarian for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
There is no cure or vaccine for this disease, which spreads most rapidly in areas where deer come in close contact with each other. That includes locations where citizens feed the animals, a practice Munk said is ill-advised and illegal."
Drugmaker AbbVie will pay $24M to California, whistleblower to settle fraud lawsuit
Sac Bee's CATHIE ANDERSON: "California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced that the Department of Insurance reached a $24 million settlement with pharmaceutical giant AbbVie that will require it to change its marketing practices for its immunology drug Humira.
Once a blockbuster sales driver for the company, Humira faced stiff competition from similar drugs on the international market. In the second quarter of 2020, foreign sales of the drug dropped by nearly 20 percent, and U.S. sales did not increase enough to cover that steep drop. Humira is used to treat symptoms of arthritis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, plaque psoriasis and ankylosing spondylitis.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed in Alameda Superior Court that the state of California brought against AbbVie, alleging that it had violated the Insurance Frauds Prevention Act by failing to disclose critical information to patients and health care providers."
US adds 1.8M jobs in a sign that hiring has slowed
AP: "The United States added 1.8 million jobs in July, a pullback from the gains of May and June and evidence that the resurgent coronavirus is stalling hiring and slowing an economic rebound.
With confirmed viral cases still elevated in much of the nation and businesses under continued pressure, many employers appear reluctant or unable to hire. Even counting the hiring of the last three months, the economy has now recovered only about 42% of the 22 million jobs it lost to the pandemic-induced recession, according to the Labor Department’s jobs report released Friday.
The unemployment rate did decline in July from 11.1% to 10.2%, though that still exceeds the highest rate during the 2008-2009 Great Recession."
Former SF medical examiner's employee sues city over Adachi autopsy dispute
The Chronicle's DOMINIC FRACASSA: "A former high-ranking official at the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office is suing the city for wrongful termination, alleging he was fired after he refused to alter Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s autopsy report on orders from City Administrator Naomi Kelly.
Christopher Wirowek, a former operators director for the Medical Examiner’s Office, filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court late last month, claiming he faced retaliation and was eventually terminated after spurning Kelly’s demand to alter the autopsy report shortly before it was released to the public in March 2019.
Wirowek also alleges his office and work computer were ransacked by a superior in the office while he was on paternity leave in early 2019. Last August, after Wirowek announced his intent to return to work, he claims he was put on administrative leave but “knew his termination was a foregone conclusion,” according to the lawsuit."
'Strong mayor' will be on the Sacramento ballot again. How this campaign differs from 2014 version
Sac Bee's THERESA CLIFT: "In three months, Sacramento voters will decide whether to overhaul the city’s government structure to make the mayor the most powerful position in the city.
For many Sacramentans, the question will look familiar.
Sacramento voters in 2014 easily rejected a similar “strong mayor” proposal. At least three other attempts died before reaching the ballot."
SF teachers union, school districft reach tentative agreement for distance learning
The Chronicle's LAUREN HERNANDEZ: "San Francisco school district officials and teachers union representatives reached a tentative agreement for distance learning instruction for the upcoming school year in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The agreement — if ratified by a vote of union members and the San Francisco Unified School District — will remain in effect until June 30, 2021 “or until students return to in-person instruction,” according to a summary of the agreement released by the United Educators of San Francisco.
Teachers union officials said the tentative agreement came after a “marathon bargaining session” that lasted more than 16 hours on Wednesday."
Children with disabilities are regressing. How much is distance learning to blame?
LA Times's SONALI KOHLI: "Olivia Tan is regressing. She’s lost much of her curiosity, is unwilling to explore her home or flip through books as much as she used to — and her father feels helpless.
The 6-year-old is deaf, blind in one eye and has cognitive delays, heart issues and other physical difficulties that are part of CHARGE syndrome, a disorder caused by a gene mutation. At her Bay Area elementary school, she had a one-on-one aide. At home she has three siblings and two parents trying desperately to offer some semblance of education.
“I don’t feel comfortable doing this,” Simon Tan said of trying to follow the directions of her professional therapists and teachers through a computer. “If somebody asked me just from a standpoint of — are the special education services sufficient? The answer is blatantly no, in no way are they sufficient.”
California colleges in last-minute scramble to open without state guidance
LA Times's TERESA WATANABE/NINA AGRAWAL/PHIL WILLON: "Just days before the fall semester is set to begin, California colleges and universities are scrambling to finalize reopening plans that affect thousands of students as top leaders say the state’s lack of guidance for weeks has frustrated efforts to bring back limited in-person learning and dorm living.
Many campuses, including USC and Claremont McKenna, say the lack of clear and timely state guidance has caused them to spend enormous energy and money preparing for varying reopening scenarios — without knowing what will be allowed amid a surge of COVID-19 infections.
The uncertainty has resulted in a “wild array of different configurations of approaches and solutions” among campuses, according to Hiram Chodosh, president of Claremont McKenna College."
Trump, losing his grip on GOP, wields less influence as crises mount
LA Times's ELI STOKOLS/CHRIS MEGERIAN: "Less than three months before election day, evidence is mounting that President Trump is losing political influence in Washington and facing the early onset of “lame duck” status as Republican leaders in Congress increasingly appear willing to defy or rebuff him.
In recent days, GOP lawmakers who once saluted — or at least didn’t publicly oppose — Trump initiatives have thrown cold water on some of his ideas and proposals — rejecting his suggestion to delay the Nov. 3 election, repudiating his unsubstantiated claims that mail-in-voting leads to mass fraud, eliminating funds for a new FBI headquarters across from his hotel, and snubbing his calls for a payroll tax cut.
Although the nation is in a deep economic slump, with more than 31 million Americans seeking jobless benefits, Trump has shown little interest in twisting arms in Congress to negotiate another coronavirus financial relief package that would extend unemployment benefits and help school districts struggling during the pandemic."
