PG&E says outages possible Sunday to Tuesday as winds of up to 100 MPH bring extreme fire danger
The Chronicle's SHWANIKA NARAYAN: "Even as Pacific Gas & Electric Co. canceled fire-prevention power outages for the Bay Area this week, the utility warned that more shut-offs are possible Sunday, Monday and Tuesday — across a wider swathe of its service territory — as highly dangerous fire weather appears to be looming.
The risk of outages Sunday to Tuesday is “elevated,” PG&E said Thursday. The outages are not certain to happen, but the forecast, while still several days out, is increasingly grim.
The National Weather Service said Thursday that critical fire weather conditions return late Saturday night into Monday with the strongest winds peaking overnight Sunday."
Alert issued for NorCal as wind creates 'extreme fire weather conditions'
Sac Bee's ROSALIO AHUMADA: "As a red flag warning remains in effect through Friday evening in Northern California, the National Weather Service expects dangerous wildfire conditions to return to the region by Sunday morning.
The weather service on Thursday issued a fire weather watch alert that goes into effect Sunday morning through Tuesday afternoon. Forecasters anticipate strong wind and relatively low humidity, risky conditions that could allow a wildfire to rapidly grow in size.
The weather alert was issued for the Sacramento Valley, the Northern San Joaquin Valley, the Northern Sierra Foothills and the Sierra north of Highway 50, according to the weather service. The affected areas include Sacramento, Yolo and western Placer counties, along with San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties."
Court allows EPA to delay rules limiting release of methane from landfills
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "A federal appeals court says the Trump administration acted legally in authorizing itself to delay Obama administration rules intended to limit emissions of methane and other greenhouse gases and pollutants from the nation’s landfills.
Regulations of solid-waste landfills, a significant source of air pollution, were first proposed under the Clean Air Act in 1991 and were finally adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency in August 2016. They set guidelines to reduce emissions and timetables for plans to implement those standards: The EPA was to review proposals from individual states by September 2017 and enact its own plan for the rest of the nation by the end of November 2017.
When the agency failed to meet those deadlines, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam of Oakland, in a suit by California, other states and environmental groups, ruled in May 2019 that compliance was mandatory and ordered the EPA to submit a federal plan by November 2019, with progress reports every 90 days."
Coronavirus outbreak strikes LA megachurch that defied public health orders
LA Times's JACLYN COSGROVE: "An evangelical megachurch in Los Angeles that has defied L.A. County public health orders and held indoor worship services for the last several weeks has been struck with an outbreak of the coronavirus, public health officials confirmed Thursday.
Grace Community Church in Sun Valley has seen three confirmed cases, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Public health officials are investigating the outbreak and said they will work closely with the church to help limit transmission of the coronavirus in the church, which has an estimated attendance of 7,000. The county did not provide any further details about whether the cases were confirmed among staff or worshipers. Attorneys for Grace Community Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment."
Time to test the market? California home sellers walking away with record amounts of cash
Sac Bee's TONY BIZJAK: "Despite the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Californians who sold their homes this summer pocketed record levels of cash – on average a half-million dollars in Silicon Valley – far more than people in the rest of the country.
Even more modestly expensive California communities sit near the top of the national list.
The Sacramento metropolitan area, which includes Roseville, Folsom and Elk Grove, ranked as only the eighth most lucrative home sales market in California, but the typical home seller here this summer walked away with $145,000 in their pockets, more than sellers in the New York-Newark metropolitan area, where the average net was $114,000."
What this West African village's Ebola fight can teach the US about COVID-19
LA Times's EMILY BAUMGAERTNER: "Four years before COVID-19 swept the globe, I climbed onto the back of a motorbike in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and headed three miles up the steep, dusty terrain behind the local Shell gas station. It was the only way to reach the village of Dirty Box Junction.
Months earlier, a 14-year-old girl had taken the same winding route home after buying cellphone messaging credits and a case of Fanta. The Shell station had been crowded; the cashier had been feverish.
Within 21 days, the teenager, Mary Yavannah, had watched helplessly as blood poured from her mother’s nose and mouth. It was Ebola, and she died within hours, Mary told me, crouching on her bare mattress as she fiddled with her hair beads and wiped a tear from her chin."
Uber and Lyft must pay drivers as employees under California labor law AB 5, court rules
Sac Bee's JEONG PARK: "Uber and Lyft must pay their California drivers as employees within weeks to comply with a new state labor law that directs companies to provide benefits to more workers, according to a state appeals court ruling filed Thursday.
California Attorney General and city attorneys for San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego sued Uber and Lyft in May, saying the companies should classify their drivers as employees rather than as independent contractors under the law known as Assembly Bill 5.
The unanimous ruling from the 1st District Court of Appeal affirms a San Francisco Superior Court judge’s preliminary injunction issued in August. Uber and Lyft had threatened to pull out of California, only to stay when the appellate court temporarily issued a stay on the preliminary injunction."
Lawsuit: Uber abuses power with Prop. 22 ads in drivers' apps
The Chronicle's CAROLYN SAID: "Uber is abusing its economic power over California drivers with “a constant barrage” of in-app ads urging them to vote for Proposition 22, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.
The case, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by some drivers and nonprofits, said the aggressive ads violate California laws that prohibit employers from “controlling or directing” employees over political activities, including their voting rights. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, asks for up to $260 million in damages and an injunction to halt the practice.
Prop. 22, which voters will decide in less than two weeks, would keep drivers and couriers for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates as independent contractors, entitled to some earnings guarantees and benefits. It would essentially exempt them from AB5, California’s new gig-work law, which makes it much harder for companies to claim that workers are not employees. The gig companies say they and their workers depend on the flexibility of the freelance model."
Key takeaways from the second and final Trump-Biden debate
LA Times's MARK BARABAK/MELANIE MASON: "If you’re one of more than 49 million Americans who have already cast your presidential ballot, not to worry.
Though they managed to behave better than in their last raucous debate — a mute button helped — nothing that President Trump or Democratic challenger Joe Biden said or did onstage Thursday night seems likely to change a great many minds.
Coming just 12 days before election day — or what might be more accurately called the voting cutoff — the mostly tame 90-minute session presented Trump his last best chance before a national audience to change the trajectory of a race he seems to be losing.
READ MORE related to Debate Takeaways: The Chronicle: Not as bad as last debate, but Trump needed better -- The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI/TAL KOPAN/JOHN WILDERMUTH
Trump cools his bluster in debate but doesn't transform a race he's losing
LA Times's JANET HOOK: "Staring down the barrel of electoral defeat, President Trump did something Thursday night that does not come easily to him: He made a course correction.
After spending most of the first debate with Joe Biden hectoring, interrupting and making the exchange almost unwatchable, Trump began the second and final debate showing more restraint.
He didn’t manage to maintain that tone throughout the allotted 90 minutes, and he still brought his trademark bluster and insults, but the calmer approach at least allowed voters to follow the proceedings."
Fox News' Hannity says his ally President Trump won the debate, but the host is an outlier
LA Times's JAMES RAINEY/ARIT JOHN/TYRONE BEASON: "The debate showdown between President Trump and Joe Biden produced some sharp contrasts Thursday night, but none as drastic as the divide that emerged in the television world’s post-debate analysis — with Fox News delivering one worldview and most of the rest of the TV news ecosystem presenting a starkly different one.
Fox News commentators who immediately followed the debate suggested it was unlikely to sway many undecided voters. But their more moderate remarks were quickly washed away when Trump ally Sean Hannity delivered an hourlong beatdown against Biden, who the Fox star falsely insisted had been caught in “lie after lie after lie.”
Hannity devoted much of the rest of his program to a disquisition on unsubstantiated allegations about Biden’s son Hunter’s overseas contacts as an energy consultant."
Meet the Mexican Americans in California who are voting for Donald Trump
Sac Bee's KIM BOJORQUEZ: "ALinda Martinez-Hanna gets called a traitor.
When she walked into a room at family gatherings last year, her presence prompted relatives to say, “Alli viene la Republicana” – “There comes the Republican” – as they trickled out of the room.
Most of her friends, those who she thought would “never in a million years” turn on her, no longer speak to her."
Judge urges US to help find parents deported without kids
AP: "A federal judge on Thursday urged the Trump administration to do more to help court-appointed researchers find hundreds of parents who were separated from their children after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border beginning in 2017.
A court filing revealed this week that researchers have been unable to track down the parents of 545 children — a number much larger than previously known and that drew outcry. Most of the parents were deported to their Central American homelands, and their children were placed with sponsors in the U.S., often relatives.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw refrained from issuing an order during a hearing in San Diego and instead asked Justice Department attorneys to explore ways the administration can make it easier to find the parents."
Fact Check: Is Kamala Harris 'more liberal than Bernie Sanders'?
Sac Bee's DAVID LIGHTMAN: "Harris has been one of the Senate’s most consistent liberal votes, though whether she is the most liberal is open to interpretation.
Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal advocacy group that compiles ratings based on votes it regards as crucial to its mission, gave Harris perfect scores in 2017 and 2018. Sanders also got a perfect score in 2018, and a 95% in 2017.
ADA also gave 13 other senators perfect scores in 2017 and eight others in 2018. The Democratic Senate average was 88.8 in 2017 and 88.6 in 2018."
Mayor Steinberg says he won't run again. New legal opinion on Measure A leaves door open
Sac Bee's THERESA CLIFT: "An eleventh-hour legal opinion from the Sacramento city attorney’s office leaves the door open for Mayor Darrell Steinberg to run for another two terms, even if voters approve Measure A, the so-called strong mayor measure.
Steinberg has repeatedly said he does not intend to run again in 2024, regardless of whether voters approve the measure, which would make the mayor’s position the most powerful in the city.
“I have no intention of running for a third term,” Steinberg said. “I am beginning my 25th year of elected public service. I will be ready to do something else with my life.”"
Roseville has $500K in grants available for small business owners. How can you apply?
Sac Bee's MOLLY SULLIVAN: "The city of Roseville has quite a bit of money to give to small business owners affected by the COVID-19 lockdown, and not very much time to give it out.
In a presentation to the City Council on Wednesday, City Manager Dominick Casey said the city has $500,000 available for small business owners. The grants provide up to $20,000 per business to support job retention for low- to moderate-income individuals.
“So you should hurry up and get your applications in,” Casey said in the meeting. “And as a reminder for those who are eligible, you must be a locally owned restaurant, retail or service business with a physical storefront or office location in the city of Roseville.”"
Should California allow affirmative action? Here's why some say the UC isn't diverse enough
LA Times's JENNIFER LU: "With Proposition 16 on the ballot this year, California voters will decide once again whether to permit the state to use affirmative action based on race and sex.
Its passage would repeal a 1996 ballot measure that banned the consideration of race or sex in public sector jobs, public contracting and at public schools, including the University of California system.
Supporters of Proposition 16, including the UC Board of Regents, argue that affirmative action is needed to ensure that California’s higher education reflects the diversity of the state."
BART to slash costs, with possible service cuts and layoffs on the horizon
The Chronicle's MALLORY MOENCH: "BART’s board approved a cost-cutting plan Thursday that includes an employee retirement incentive package as the pandemic robs the train system of its ridership and some directors fear for the agency’s long-term financial viability.
BART covered expenses for the first three quarters of the fiscal year that ends in June 2021 with federal funding, but it faces a $33 million deficit in the fourth quarter. General Manager Bob Powers told the board Thursday he was “very confident” the seven-step cost-cutting plan will make ends meet by the end of the year, with Board President Lateefah Simon pledging “we will close the gap.”
But the agency still faces a projected $177 million shortfall in the next fiscal year. Leadership said a potential change in federal administration after the election would likely bring funding, but wouldn’t solve long-term problems."
A confession, 36 years late
The Chronicle's JOSH SUCHON: "It was a murder that shocked the once sleepy community of Pleasanton, spreading fear and suspicion. A 14-year-old girl, walking home from school, was attacked in a grassy field, stabbed 44 times and left to die near a drainage culvert. There were no witnesses and few clues.
When the case went cold, the mystery deepened: Who killed Foothill High freshman Tina Faelz on April 5, 1984, and why?
Detectives focused on the adults in Tina’s life and, finding few leads, eyed serial killers. On campus, students whispered about the strange boy who lived on Lemonwood Way, across from the crime scene, whose talk loosened at parties with cryptic words and sometimes outright boasts that he did it."
