LA hospitals brace for the worst
LA Times's ALEX WIGGLESWORTH/SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA: "There is a growing sense of dread in hospitals across Los Angeles County and the rest of California that the already grim conditions are about to get much worse and that the coming holidays could bring yet another surge of COVID-19 patients.
There were 16,843 COVID-19 patients in California hospitals Saturday, and 3,614 of them were in intensive care units, according to data released Sunday by the state — a huge increase from two months ago, when there were 2,291 patients and 657 in ICUs. On Saturday, Los Angeles County hospitals were treating the largest share of patients: 5,709, with 1,175 in ICUs.
Availability of ICU beds in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley remained at zero Sunday."
State legislature delays start of 2021 session due to uncontrolled COVID-19 numbers
Sac Bee's HANNAH WILEY: "The California Legislature has pushed its return date to Sacramento for the start of the 2021 session back by a week to Jan. 11 due to staggering COVID-19 numbers, according to a joint statement from Democratic leadership.
“With the number of COVID-19 cases reaching all-time highs and in an effort to keep members, Legislative staff, and all staff in the Capitol as safe as possible, both the Assembly and Senate have decided to move the date of our return to session to January 11, 2021,” Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, said in a Friday statement.
The massive surge in new infections has sapped hospital capacity, forcing 98% of the state into regional stay-at-home orders in an attempt to stymie the spread of the virus, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in a Friday video."
California's wild places are under siege and dying
Sac Bee's RYAN SABALOW: "A rubber bullet whizzed past my head just inches from my ear. I tried to stay at a safe distance from the mayhem on J Street in Sacramento that night, but a bottle crashed against the street sign next to me.
I shook the broken glass out of my shirt. My skin itched from the tear gas.
It was late May — the first time I’d left my house for an assignment since the COVID-19 lockdowns began — and unrest had consumed Sacramento.
The next night was worse. Someone came up behind me and tried to take my phone as I recorded a group of young men smashing car windows. A man later flashed a handgun. One of my colleagues suffered a broken finger when someone pushed him down and stole his camera gear."
READ MORE related to Climate/Environment: Changes caused by worsening wildfires in California forests will last centuries -- LA Times's JOSEPH SERNA; In Devil's Garden, California's majestic wild horses trapped in no-win fight for survival -- Sac Bee's RYAN SABALOW; Bay Area Spare the Air alert issued for Monday due to smoke -- The Chronicle's RYAN KOST; You better not pout: Bay Area could see rain on Christmas -- The Chronicle's TATIANA SANCHEZ
Pandemic fuels long-shot recall effort against Newsom
LA Times's JOHN MYERS: "Among the many catchphrases coined by Gov. Gavin Newsom during his livestreamed briefings about California’s COVID-19 emergency is his promise to point out “trend lines before they become headlines” — a reminder that warning signs often appear long before things reach a crisis point.
It’s an observation that could also apply to Newsom’s political fortunes. As he slogs through an unparalleled crisis, the 53-year-old Democrat finds himself staring at the most unexpected of trend lines: the very real chance of a special statewide election in 2021 in which voters could remove him from office.
Only once has a California governor faced a recall: the 2003 election that cut short the tenure of Gov. Gray Davis. By most measures, the current circumstances make for an ill-fitting comparison — whereas Davis had narrowly won reelection the year before and was widely unpopular, Newsom won the governorship in 2018 by the largest margin in modern history and has maintained a strong job approval rating."
California is short on Spanish-speaking physicians. Why that's a big problem in a pandemic
Sac Bee's KIM BOJORQUEZ: "The high number of coronavirus infections and deaths among California’s Latino communities is underscoring the state’s shortage of culturally competent, Spanish-speaking doctors.
Medical experts fear the scarcity of Latino or Spanish-speaking doctors could lead to worse health outcomes for the state’s Hispanic communities, who, so far, represent more than 700,000 COVID-19 cases and 10,000 virus-related deaths in California.
“You can’t plant strawberries in your front room. You can’t stay at home and be a farmworker. Hence, because they’re more exposed, they’re more likely to become infected,” said Dr. David E. Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA. “Now, at that point, the Latino doctor shortage suddenly becomes critical.”"
Congress seals agreement on $900B COVID relief bill
AP's ANDREW TAYLOR: "Top Capitol Hill negotiators sealed a deal Sunday on a $900 billion COVID-19 economic relief package, finally delivering long-overdue help to businesses and individuals and providing money to deliver vaccines to a nation eager for them.
The agreement, announced by congressional leaders, would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit and a $600 direct stimulus payment to most Americans, along with a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses and money for schools, health care providers and renters facing eviction.
It came after months of battling and posturing, but the negotiating dynamic changed in Republicans' favor after the election and as the end of the congressional session neared. President-elect Joe Biden was eager for a deal to deliver long-awaited help to suffering people and a boost to the economy, even though it was less than half the size that Democrats wanted this fall."
READ MORE related to Pandemic Relief: California, hard-pressed cities lose in COVID stimulus deal as aid is left out -- The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF
Amid a crushing pandemic, this party van is a lifeline for California farmworkers
LA Times's DIANA MARCUM: "The van rattling down a field road stood out even in a cloud of dust, its paint job the colors of birthday cake frosting, Christmas tree lights, red-purple-yellow-blue confetti.
A party van helps when trying to reach farmworkers in dark pandemic times. But Ricardo Castorena, 47, found that out by accident. He’d only been trying to get free gas when he made the deal with the radio station.
In March, when the pandemic first closed bars and festivals, the sales manager of Radio Lazer KLUN-FM 103.1 feared the station would lose name recognition — a name announced in promos by a galloping telenovela voice backed with the sounds of a laser-gun battle."
Racial justice advocates flex power, ask Biden to do more than 'check the box'
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "The racial justice movement that packed the streets of scores of U.S. cities last summer is flexing its muscle now to influence President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet picks — and potentially a high-profile appointment that Gov. Gavin Newsom will soon make.
Biden’s favorite to lead the Environmental Protection Agency was Mary Nichols, the longtime head of the California Air Resources Board. But her prospects were destroyed when dozens of California racial justice groups sent a letter to Biden criticizing Nichols’ record on environmental justice, saying her championing of the state’s cap-and-trade strategy to reduce greenhouse gases did nothing to keep polluters from dirtying the air in low-income communities. They reminded Biden that he had promised to prioritize racial equity when choosing his Cabinet.
“There was a mandate,” Gladys Limón, executive director of California Environmental Justice Alliance, told The Chronicle before Biden made his pick, “and this is a litmus test."
UCSF makes about-face to save New Deal-era murals from destruction
The Chronicle's SAM WHITING: "In a surprising reversal, UCSF announced that it will save and store a famous New Deal-era series of murals inside a medical school building scheduled for demolition in 2022.
The 1938 frescoes titled “The History of Medicine” were painted by Bernard Zakheim on commission by the Federal Art Project during the Great Depression. Five years ago, it was put on a rare public display as the “crown jewel” of the university’s art collection. But last June, UCSF administrators revealed that the crown jewel might be too fragile or too costly to move. The estimate was $8 million, and descendants of Zakheim were given 90 days to come up with a plan to take possession of the murals “at their own expense,” as stated in a legal notice sent to the family by UCSF.
This brought an outcry from the heirs, along with New Deal historians, and champions of the artist who collaborated with Diego Rivera and contributed to historic murals inside Coit Tower. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors began proceedings to give the “History of Medicine” emergency landmark status, a symbolic designation since the UC campus is a state facility. In addition, the General Services Administration, a federal agency that oversees artwork funded by the Works Progress Administration (which was part of the New Deal), stated that the murals were on loan and could not be destroyed."
Sacramento rocket pioneer Aerojet to be acquired by Lockheed Martin in $4.4B deal
Sac Bee's DALE KASLER: "Once it was one of the region’s most prestigious companies — an aerospace behemoth that put Sacramento in the thick of the Cold War and the race to the moon.
Now Aerojet, years removed from its glory days as a big Sacramento company, has been sold.
Late Sunday the rocket engine manufacturer, now known as Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings and based in El Segundo, announced it is being taken over by Lockheed Martin Corp."
Project Roomkey to shelter homeless people from COVID is extended indefinitely
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "A program that has moved thousands of California’s homeless into hotels to protect them from the coronavirus by sheltering alone will continue through the end of the pandemic after the federal government extended funding indefinitely, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
Project Roomkey, the program created in April, moves the most vulnerable off the streets, including those 65 or older and anyone with an underlying condition. Hotel rooms allow them to shelter alone.
California previously secured a commitment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for 75% of the program, and cities and counties ultimately rented more than 15,000 hotel and motel rooms. But a requirement to seek renewal from FEMA every 30 days led to constant concern that funding would end. San Francisco and other communities had planned to wind down their programs."
Biden's test: Rebuilding the Iran nuclear deal Trump eviscerated
LA Times's TRACY WILKINSON: "President-elect Joe Biden has made no secret that one of his earliest foreign policy objectives will be for the U.S. to rejoin the landmark Iran nuclear deal that the Trump administration has spent four years disparaging and gutting.
Restoring the agreement, however, will be among his administration’s toughest foreign policy challenges. The president-elect’s team will have to navigate a raft of new Trump-era U.S. sanctions, tweak the deal to garner domestic and international support and convince Iran that it is in its best interest to cooperate. It will also have to work quickly: Iran’s moderate president, seen as the best advocate within the Islamic Republic for the deal, will be leaving office in June.
“We have the most experienced team since 1979 in the Biden administration in terms of dealing with Iran — there is no precedent for this,” said Suzanne Maloney, a former Middle East specialist at the State Department and now director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution. But she said the obstacles are as formidable as ever, perhaps more daunting."
Despite his boasts, Trump again is no deal-maker as Congress seeks pandemic relief bill
LA Times's ELI STOKOLS/SARAH D WIRE: "As Congress’ Democratic and Republican leaders for the past week tortuously negotiated a long-awaited $900-billion coronavirus relief package, President Trump remained mostly out of sight at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, tweeting falsely that he’d won reelection and hosting holiday parties despite a worsening pandemic.
The president’s lack of interest in the legislative process isn’t just that of a brooding lame duck struggling to come to terms with defeat. It’s been a constant of his four years in the White House. Elected in part because of his self-branding as a savvy mogul skilled in “the art of the deal,” as he titled one bestseller, Trump will leave office next month having cut few major deals, content with a political legacy defined far more by stoking cultural grievances and issuing often ineffectual executive orders.
He has taken credit for Congress’ biggest accomplishments, from a Republican tax-cut package to a criminal justice overhaul written largely by Democrats. He promised bipartisan deals on immigration, gun control, infrastructure projects and more, never following through. His role in the legislative process has been primarily as a disrupter whose erratic directives to lawmakers, most often delivered in tweets, frequently upend the already fraught policy-making process on Capitol Hill."
