Murderers, rapists got unemployyment money in massive state taxpayer fraud
Sac Bee's WES VENTEICHER/DAVID LIGHTMAN: "Inmates at California’s prisons and jails have filed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fraudulent claims since the pandemic arrived, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said Tuesday.
Investigators are still tallying totals after learning of a widespread scheme in September, but the amount of fraudulent claims the state has paid could reach $1 billion, Schubert said in a news conference in Sacramento.
“It is perhaps, and will be, one of the biggest fraud(s) of taxpayer dollars in California history,” she said."
READ MORE related to EDD Fraud Scandal: 'Dysfunctional' EDD was unresponsive amid unemployment fraud, prosecutors say -- Sac Bee's DAVID LIGHTMAN; Scott Peterson, Cary Stayner among infamous Death Row killers named in EDD fraud case -- Sac Bee's ROSALIO AHUMADA
Determined holiday travelers make airports a surreal oasis from COVID fears and warnings
LA Times's HAYLEY SMITH: "It’s Thanksgiving week at Los Angeles International Airport, and you could almost forget a pandemic is raging, aside from the masks obscuring travelers’ faces.
On Monday morning, people shuffled through check-in lines less than six feet apart and clustered around luggage conveyors awaiting their bags. Their presence defied both logic and health guidelines: governors and public officials have been pleading for weeks for people to stay home amid a rapid surge of coronavirus cases.
But for some, the temptation to be with loved ones at the tail end of a trying year of fire, flood, politics and plague is too great."
Pollsters are taking lumps for bad calls in battleground states. Here's why they're taking victory laps in California
The Chronicle's JOHN WILDERMUTH: "Voters in key battleground states fooled pollsters again this presidential election, but in California they did just what the polls suggested they would.
California’s election forecasts were almost smack on the final numbers, a rare bright spot for the much-criticized industry. It hasn’t always been that way in California, where Democrats have built a comfortable margin in the past three decades — making the state much easier to predict.
California pollsters say their detailed knowledge of the state helped. National pollsters often misstep as they forecast the outcome in states they don’t know well."
New LA County 'Safer at Home' restrictions revealed as COVID-19 surge worsens
LA Times's RONG-GONG LIN II/LUKE MONEY/JACLYN COSGROVE/LILA SEIDMAN: "With coronavirus cases and COVID-19 deaths surging at an alarming rate, Los Angeles County officials Tuesday began to outline a new limited Safer at Home order aimed at slowing the virus spread while sticking with an outdoor dining ban amid a growing outcry.
The new restrictions are looking increasingly likely as daily coronavirus infections spike to unprecedented levels, increasing stress on hospitals amid concern more people will be infected during the Thanksgiving holiday. But it also appears that a new stay-at-home order that had been suggested as a possibility last week would fall far short of the one imposed during the first months of the pandemic in the spring.
The March order closed all but essential businesses and left many people at home except for trips to such places as supermarkets and medical offices. But officials suggested Tuesday the new rules would allow many businesses to remain open but with limited customer capacity."
SF remains in California's red tier, even as other Bay Area counties clamp down due to surge
The Chronicle's AIDIN VAZIRI/ERIN ALLDAY: "San Francisco did not move into the most restrictive purple tier of California’s economic reopening plan as expected on Tuesday. But public health officials said coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are climbing dramatically and they expect to land there later in the week.
Average daily cases have shot up more than 60% since the start of the month, from 73 to 118, although San Francisco’s numbers are still lower than many parts of the state and country.
“We are at a critical moment,” Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, said during a Tuesday briefing."
Since shelter in place, Bay Area sparrows are singing in tones that researchers haven't heard in decades
The Chronicle's NORA MISHANEC: "It was just after sunrise at Lobos Creek in the Presidio, and ornithologist Jennifer Phillips was crouched low in the dunes, waiting for sparrows. She inched forward, microphone in hand, the early morning silence broken by birdsong and the distant rumble of traffic.
On that morning and many others since the start of the pandemic, Phillips roamed the Presidio’s coastal sage scrub in search of white-crowned sparrows, one of the Bay Area’s most common avian inhabitants known for its distinctive, trilling warble.
Phillips was astonished by what she heard. The birds sang more softly in the relative quiet of the pandemic-stricken city. They began using a lower register — a more seductive trill — that hadn’t been recorded locally since the 1950s."
What are foehn winds? Fires in the Eastern Sierra were fueled by Santa Ana-like gusting
LA Times's PAUL DUGINSKI: "Strong southwesterly downslope winds fed fires in the Eastern Sierra last week, including one that devastated the town of Walker, near the California-Nevada border.
Winds gusted to 40 mph for 12 to 16 hours, according to Marvin Boyd, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Reno.
Like Washoe Zephyrs, the winds that fanned the Pinehaven and Mountain View fires, blew from west to east. But that’s where the similarity ends."
Bay Area's commercial Dungeness crab season delayed again to Dec. 16
The Chronicle's TARA DUGGAN: "Dungeness crab season is delayed yet again. On Tuesday, the state announced the commercial crab fishing season from Point Arena to the Mexican border would be pushed a second time to Dec. 16 to prevent endangered whales from getting entangled and injured in fishing gear.
The state had already delayed the opening of the season from Nov. 15 to Dec. 1 for the same reason, disappointing Bay Area seafood lovers, who traditionally like to have Dungeness crab on Thanksgiving, and the local crab fishing fleet, which makes most of its income from the busy Thanksgiving and holiday season. Because of new rules established this month, the state has the authority to close certain fishing areas when there is evidence of a certain number of humpback whales, blue whales or Pacific leatherback sea turtles in crab fishing areas.
Recent aerial surveys have shown there to still be whales in fishing rounds, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton H. Bonham said in a statement announcing the latest delay. The state also recently announced it would delay the Dungeness crab season in the northern region, from Mendocino County to Del Norte County, from Dec. 1 to Dec. 16, but the reason was different —crabs in that area failed meat quality tests or basically didn’t grow meaty enough to catch."
Declining immunization rates for non-COVID illnesses means some students won't be able to return to campuses whenever they reopen
EdSource's DANA LAMBERT/ALI TADAYON: "Even as public health officials face the challenge of how to vaccinate all or most people to protect them from the Covid-19 virus, school administrators are having to come up with innovative ways to ensure that students get immunized against more familiar diseases like measles and whooping cough.
To the alarm of school district officials, immunization rates have plummeted in California during the pandemic. In May the California Department of Public Health rang the alarm about falling immunization rates statewide, reporting that the number of children who were vaccinated in the month of April fell by more than 40%, compared to the same month the previous year. State officials have not yet compiled data for this school year.
Although most students in California are currently learning at home via distance learning, they will have to be immunized before attending schools for in-person instruction. School districts are boosting their efforts to make sure that happens, including at West Contra Costa Unified, which handed out 244 free Thanksgiving turkeys to families who brought students to a vaccination clinic in the parking lot of district headquarters last week. The San Francisco Bay Area district, which includes the city of Richmond, also handed out turkeys to families in need.
Sutter Health nets profit in third quarter, as investment income covers operating loss
Sac Bee's CATHIE ANDERSON: "Sutter Health reported a profit in its most recent quarterly statement, but that was largely as a result of growth in its investments rather than in its operations as leaders of the hospital giant said they continue to grapple with costs associated with the new coronavirus pandemic.
In filings last week to bond issuers, Sutter reported it had a financial income of $240 million for the third quarter that ended Sept. 30, compared with a loss of $671 million in the same period last year.
That profit was achieved with help from rebounding investment income. According to the financial statements, Sutter reported a loss from operations of $48 million, but gained $288 million in investment income."
Video released of Sacramento police shooting man pointing gun at boxing event crowd
Sac Bee's ROSALIO AHUMADA/ALEX YOON-HENDRICKS: "The Sacramento Police Department on Tuesday released video of one its police sergeants shooting a man who reportedly pointed a gun at a crowd gathered for a community boxing event.
Augustine Bernardo Morales, 38, died after he was shot by the Sacramento police sergeant at the warehouse in the 1600 block of Juliesse Avenue on Nov. 14.
Morales, who suffered life-threatening injuries in the police shooting, was taken by ambulance to hospital, where he was pronounced dead by medical staff, Sacramento police officials have said. Investigators found a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun near Morales, along with a partially loaded ammunition magazine, according to police."
Gun crime in East Bay cities has police and officials seeking to keep perps off the streets
The Chronicle's PHIL MATIER: "Law enforcement officers throughout the East Bay are furiously trying to deal with a shocking rise in gun crimes and a revolving door in the judicial system that releases people arrested in possession of deadly weapons back to the streets.
“This has been building up for some time, but now it has become a real problem,” Oakland Interim Police Chief Susan Manheimer said.
“We’ve recovered over 1,100 guns so far this year, a 38% increase over last year,” she added. “Homicides are up 86% since the COVID shutdown in March and ShotSpotter reports are up 80%. All major cities are seeing this,” she said of the crime landscape across the country."
'Toy Story' at the start
The Chronicle's PETER HARTLAUB: "As Pixar’s groundbreaking “Toy Story” hits its 25th anniversary, filmmakers remember where it was made — not Silicon Valley or Hollywood, but the small Bay Area neighborhood of Point Richmond.
Point Richmond is like Crockett, or Larkspur, or Sunol.
One of those lovely little Bay Area locales that is frozen in time, in part because residents speeding by on the highway almost never get off the road to see it. The rare Bay Area neighborhood that could be called a hamlet. If there were an opposite of Silicon Valley, it could be Point Richmond. If there were an opposite of Hollywood, it could be Point Richmond."
Biden picks a Goldilocks Cabinet, neither too left or right
LA Times's EVAN HALPER: "During the presidential campaign, Democrats expressed persistent anxiety that Joe Biden’s coalition would collapse as soon as it ousted President Trump from the White House — it felt too ideologically conflicted, too polarized, too tenuous to hold.
But Biden’s initial Cabinet selections and other senior appointments have won a broad embrace that suggests his aptitude for navigating such a fragile political landscape was underrated. The president-elect has displayed unforeseen skills at appeasing disparate factions in a fractious party and a divided nation.
The progressive left is feeling heard. The Democrats’ center-left is feeling reassured. And anti-Trump Republicans don’t seem to be suffering buyer’s remorse."
Archbishop Gregory stood up to Trump. Now he's about to be the first Black cardinal in the US
LA Times's TRACY WILKINSON: "Few of his parishioners were surprised when Washington, D.C., Archbishop Wilton Gregory took on President Trump.
Gregory isn’t known to speak out often about issues specifically facing Black Americans. But when he does, it is unambiguous and forceful — in words unusually strong for a man of the cloth.
In June, racial justice demonstrators outside the White House had just been tear-gassed so Trump could stand for a photo-op in front of the iconic St. John’s Episcopal Church, awkwardly waving a Bible. In a statement the next day, Gregory condemned the president’s actions as an attempt “to silence, scatter or intimidate” crowds “for a photo opportunity in front of a church.”
Trump environmental war against California ran deep. Here's how Biden changes everything
Sac Bee's DALE KASLER/MICHAEL WILNER: "Mary Nichols has led California’s resistance to President Donald Trump’s climate policies. Now she may wind up leading the federal government’s fight on climate and other environmental issues.
The chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board is widely reported to be on President-elect Joe Biden’s short list of candidates for Environmental Protection Agency administrator — a vivid example of the sea change coming to Washington and the clout that California will have in shaping the new administration’s views on a wide range of critical matters.
That will surely include Biden’s environmental agenda. Whether Nichols gets the EPA job or not, experts say the Biden administration is likely to side with California officials on a host of environmental controversies — starting with the state’s blueprint for limiting the amount of carbon spewed by cars and trucks. The Trump administration moved to strip California of its authority to regulate tailpipe emissions."
