New California EDD snag could leave some without bennies for 2.5 months
The Chronicle's CAROLYN SAID: "Californians whose unemployment benefits lapsed late last year before a federal cutoff now must wait until March before they can even apply to have them extended, state officials told lawmakers Friday.
Even though the federal government extended the benefits on Dec. 27, just one day after they expired, California’s Employment Development Department said that a programming issue prevented it from reinstating them immediately for people whose benefits had run out before Dec. 26. It will send emails, texts and mail next week to notify affected people that they need to certify for benefits starting March 7.
“I’m just appalled,” said state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park. “A lot of people will just get a letter out of the blue saying, ‘We can’t process you until March 7.’ Californians rely on benefits for food and shelter, and now this group will have to wait (at least) two and a half months.”"
California relents on indoor church services after SCOTUS' COVID-19 decision
Sac Bee's DALE KASLER: "Hemmed in by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gov. Gavin Newsom has agreed to allow houses of worship to reopen in California with limited attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newsom’s administration released guidelines for indoor worship services late Saturday based on how the state labels the status of the pandemic in a county.
The guidelines follow the state’s color-coded tier system and say churches and other houses of worship can allow attendance at 25% of capacity in counties designated purple (widespread) and red (substantial). Attendance at 50% capacity is allowed in counties listed as orange (moderate) and yellow (minimal)."
Longtime federal judges stepping aside to create vacancies for Biden to fill
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "Dan Polster has been a federal judge in Ohio since 1998, when his nomination by President Bill Clinton was confirmed by the Senate. He is presiding over more than 2,700 lawsuits by local governments and Indian tribes who accuse pharmaceutical companies of contributing to drug abuse in their distribution of opioid painkillers. He has drawn praise from both of Ohio’s senators, Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Sherrod Brown.
Now Polster, 69, is one of more than two dozen federal judges who are taking “senior” status, allowing them to reduce their caseloads while creating vacancies for President Biden to fill. Those who have spoken publicly have denied any partisan motives — understandably, since they remain on the bench — but Polster alluded to the need for the judiciary to show strength in a time of turmoil.
“I’ve always been proud to be a judge, but never more than in the past year, when our branch stood up big time — it doesn’t matter who appointed you, Democrat or Republican — under some real stresses to our democracy,” he said in an interview. Asked why he was stepping back now, Polster said he plans to maintain his caseload and noted he had been eligible for senior status four years ago."
Stimulus check eligibility could be capped at individual income of $60K, Yellen says
Sac Bee's DON SWEENEY: "Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen suggested a compromise Sunday as lawmakers debate stimulus payments to Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some proposals limit a new round of $1,400 payments to individuals earning below $75,000, but some conservative Democrats seek a $50,000 individual income cap, The Hill reported.
Speaking Sunday on State of the Union on CNN and Face the Nation on CBS, Yellen said the eligibility cap could fall at an individual income of around $60,000 per year."
As coronavirus variants spread, California worries that vaccines won't come quickly enough to prevent a new wave
The Chronicle's ERIN ALLDAY: "In the fall, as California braced itself for what public health authorities promised would be the darkest months of the pandemic, there was a hint of hope in the message: This surge might be the last.
Even in the grim final weeks of the year, vaccines were rolling out and everyone knew that cases and hospitalizations would finally fall in the new year. The next potential super-spreading holidays would be months away. It seemed possible that California and the rest of the country could conquer the virus before a fresh wave of cases swelled.
And then the variants arrived. A highly infectious mutant virus grabbed headlines in late December as it swept across the United Kingdom, and by Dec. 31 it was in California. More reports soon followed."
US sending hundreds of active-duty troops to help mass vaccinations in California
The Chronicle's ALEXEI KOSEFF: "The federal government will send hundreds of active duty troops to California in the coming weeks to help bolster the administration of vaccines in the state.
Andy Slavitt, the White House’s senior adviser for coronavirus response, said Friday that the Department of Defense had approved the request for the first contingent in what could ultimately be a deployment of thousands of members of the military to staff new mass coronavirus vaccination sites across the country.
“The military’s critical role in supporting sites will help vaccinate thousands of people per day and ensure that every American who wants a vaccine will receive one,” Slavitt said during a press briefing."
LA County's coronavirus case numbers continue to decline, but officials worry about another surge
LA Times's MATT STILES: "Los Angeles County’s daily coronavirus case numbers continued to decline Sunday, but health officials remained concerned about the recent detection of more contagious variants in the region and the potential for Super Bowl gatherings to trigger another surge.
The county’s Department of Public Health announced 3,123 new coronavirus cases and 89 related deaths, some of the lowest numbers reported in recent days. The numbers of daily hospitalizations and the positivity rate — a seven-day average — also have declined steadily in the last week. But health officials cautioned that the decline in both categories may be due in part to reporting delays.
To date, more than 1.1 million confirmed coronavirus cases have been reported among county residents, including 464,000 in the city of Los Angeles. Sunday’s announcement pushes the total number of deaths in the county since the start of the pandemic past 18,000."
Abduction of 2 kids during dad's DoorDash gig sparks debate over worker pay
The Chronicle's VANESSA ARREDONDO: "San Francisco police officers found two missing children early Sunday morning, after their father’s minivan was stolen with them in it while he made a DoorDash delivery in Pacific Heights.
Police said that at around 1:15 a.m. Sunday they found the children safely inside the vehicle in the Bayview. Two people remained at large Sunday afternoon. The children were examined by medical professionals and returned to their father.
“We’re making a personal appeal to the people that were involved in this to turn themselves in, because this crime was extremely serious and (stealing) a vehicle to take two small babies away from their parents and abandoned them — thank goodness our police officers were out there until we found those kids,” San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said."
LA's first lady, Amy Wakeland, navigates shifting political fortunes in final Garcetti says
LA Times's JAMES RAINEY/DAKOTA SMITH: "At the end of a very long and trying 2020, the first lady of Los Angeles recalled the protests over racial injustice and coronavirus restrictions that went on outside her home nearly every day.
Demonstrators chanted into bullhorns and sometimes shouted profanely, Amy Elaine Wakeland said. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s wife said she notified the family’s Los Angeles Police Department security detail whenever the disruptions got so bad that the couple’s 9-year-old daughter couldn’t complete her homework or get to sleep. From March through the end of the year, Wakeland made about 80 complaints in all.
“I would be lying to you,” she said in a recent interview, “to not tell you that it is hard on my daughter and the children in this neighborhood.”"
Activists stage demonstration at Mayor Steinberg's house
Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI: "A small but rowdy group of protesters staged a demonstration in front of Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s house in the Pocket neighborhood on Saturday night, voicing concerns over the city’s handling of homelessness amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Criticism of Steinberg and other city leaders on homelessness renewed after a vicious winter storm ravaged Sacramento in late January, which killed at least one and may have contributed to the deaths of several other unsheltered people. At the time, City Manager Howard Chan declined to open a warming center on the worst night of the storm despite calls from Steinberg and other members of City Council to do so.
The Saturday night protest was led by a loose confederation of left-wing activists who have been vocal critics of the city’s leadership since this summer. The group Sactivists, which denied organizing the protest, posted photos of demonstrators at Steinberg’s house and wrote on social media that the group’s aim was “demanding him (Steinberg) to quit his job, resign, go away, and stop.”"
How Bay Area youth poets saw Amanda Gorman's work at the Super Bowl and inauguration
The Chronicle's LILY JANIAK: "In the minutes before the kickoff to Super Bowl LV, amid the flame graphics and fireworks, after the flyover of military jets and the shots of soldiers serving overseas, there was an unusual pregame sight: a poet.
But if you saw Amanda Gorman at President Biden’s inauguration, where her performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb” became a new era’s rallying cry, you might not be surprised to see her address the nation on TV again. On Jan. 20, she was both poised and impassioned, both fresh and wise. She had vision of the future, and she exuded the power to march the rest of us toward making that vision reality.
Yet as universal as her acclaim has been, Gorman, 22, is a particular touchstone for other young poets of color."
SF school district, unions reach tentative deal to reopen classrooms
The Chronicle's TATIANA SANCHEZ/JILL TUCKER: "Unions representing San Francisco Unified School District employees announced a tentative agreement with the district Sunday to safely reopen the city’s public schools — a major step in a contentious, monthslong debate that has pitted city officials against district leaders.
A key component of the agreement allows a return to classrooms once the city reaches the red tier, the second most restrictive level of California’s reopening blueprint, if vaccinations against the coronavirus are made available to on-site school staff. If the city progresses to the orange tier, a less restrictive category with “moderate” virus spread, teachers and other staff would return without demanding vaccinations."
Longtime Reagan Sec. of State George Shultz dies at 100
AP's MATTHEW LEE: "Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a titan of American academia, business and diplomacy who spent most of the 1980s trying to improve Cold War relations with the Soviet Union and forging a course for peace in the Middle East, has died. He was 100.
Shultz died Saturday at his home on the campus of Stanford University, where he was a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank, and professor emeritus at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
The Hoover Institution announced Shultz’s death on Sunday. A cause of death was not provided."
California leaders praise George Shultz's legacy of service
The Chronicle's JESSICA FLORES: "Leaders across the Bay Area, California and the country reacted Sunday to the news that George Shultz, who served as secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, died Saturday at age 100.
The Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where Shultz long served as a distinguished fellow, announced his death Sunday. Shultz died at his home on the Stanford campus, university officials said.
In a statement, California Gov. Gavin Newsom hailed Shultz as “an extraordinary statesman, public servant and friend.”"
Trump backer decries 'show trial' as Dems call on Senate to hold him accountable
LA Times's LAURA KING: "Congressional supporters of former President Trump on Sunday denounced his upcoming Senate trial as unfair and unconstitutional, while Democrats argued that holding the ex-president accountable for provoking last month’s Capitol riot is a grave moral and political necessity.
Republicans have declined to defend Trump’s actions, which included directing his supporters to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 as then President-elect Biden’s electoral victory was being certified. But in a preview of the trial that is to begin this week, they are mounting a variety of procedural arguments to attack it, including the insistence that the House of Representatives acted too hastily in impeaching Trump just a week after the attack.
They also argue that the Senate doesn’t have the constitutional authority to convict a former president."
SAG-AFTRA votes to bar Trump from re-joining Hollywood union
LA Times's ANOUSHA SAKOUI: "After Donald Trump pre-emptively quit the union last week, SAG-AFTRA slammed the door behind him on Sunday.
The national board of Hollywood’s biggest union voted to deny the former president potential to rejoin the union, it said in a statement Sunday. Five board members, including broadcast journalists, abstained from the vote Sunday, which took place via via video conference. The decision was made after Trump resigned from the union before hearings over disciplinary charges against the “Apprentice” star could be heard.
Trump on Thursday departed the union in an insult-filled missive that lauded his own work in the entertainment industry. In the wake of the Capitol insurrection, a SAG-AFTRA disciplinary committee had been due on Friday to weigh Trump’s expulsion from the union for inciting attacks against reporters."
18 dead, 165 missing after global warming-induced breaking of massive glacier in India
LA Times's BISWAJEET BANERJEE/RISHABH R JAIN: "Rescue crews struggled to reach trapped victims Sunday after part of a glacier in the Himalayas broke off and released a torrent of water and debris that slammed into two hydroelectric plants. At least eighteen people were killed and 165 were missing in a disaster experts said appeared to point to global warming.
Video from India’s northern state of Uttarakhand showed the muddy, concrete-gray floodwaters tumbling through a valley and surging into a dam, breaking it into pieces with little resistance before roaring on downstream. The flood turned the countryside into what looked like an ash-colored moonscape.
More than 2,000 members of the military, paramilitary groups and police took part in the search-and-rescue operation, including soldiers expert in mountaineering, working into the night under bright halogen lights, authorities said."
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