Online scammers traffic in fake COVID vaccination cards, authorities warn
The Chronicle's JESSICA FLORES: "Fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards are being sold online, and authorities have warned individuals not to buy or make one — which is illegal.
“Be aware of individuals selling fake COVID-19 vaccination record cards and encouraging others to print fake cards at home,” the FBI said in a public service announcement last week. “Fake vaccination record cards have been advertised on social media websites, as well as e-commerce platforms and blogs.”
Vaccine providers issue individuals a vaccination card after they are immunized against the coronavirus. The cards, usually issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contain an individual’s personal information, like name, birth date and which vaccine a person received. (Here’s the right way to laminate your card and what to do if you lose it.)"
How COVID-19 vaccine gets from the manufacturer to your arm — and why it’s taking so long
EMILY, DERUY, Press-Enterprise: "Still waiting for your coronavirus shot? Let’s just say the country’s vaccine pipeline has been suffering a few clogs.
Yes, we’re all frustrated. And that includes Desi Kotis, chief pharmacy executive at UC San Francisco Health.
She has been helping lead UCSF Health’s vaccine distribution program and insists they are just itching to get a shot into everyone’s arm if it wasn’t for the three ugliest words in the vaccine world these days: lack of supply."
SF school board may reverse its vote to rename 44 schools
The Chronicle's JILL TUCKER: "Just over two months after voting to rename 44 schools, the San Francisco school board is poised to reverse that decision Tuesday to avoid costly litigation.
The upcoming vote represents the latest development in a months-long initiative that culminated amid the pandemic. In late January, the board voted 6-1 to change dozens of school names associated with slavery, oppression, genocide and colonization as public schools districtwide remained closed.
The process began in 2018 with a resolution to create a committee to advise the board. The committee ultimately recommended changing 44 school names, including Lincoln, Washington, Mission and Balboa high schools, as well as Alamo, Jefferson and Serra elementary.
Deal with Elon Musk could bring high-speed internet to rural San Bernardino County
RYAN HAGEN, San Bernardino Sun: "Reliable high-speed internet could soon come to remote parts of San Bernardino County that have struggled without in a time when business and schoolwork make it all but essential.
That’s the goal of an agreement signed between the county and Elon Musk’s SpaceX for Starlink — a program to use low-flying satellites combined with ground receivers to provide high-speed internet close to the level urban areas enjoy.
The county will pay $61,464 for Starlink to test for one year — until March 14, 2022– with hopes that it will lead to a game-changing service for people in far-flung parts of San Bernardino County, according to the agreement. At 20,105 square miles, San Bernardino is the largest county in the continental United States, and as many as 20% of its 2.2 million residents lack high-speed internet, said Curt Hagman, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors."
A Car Crash in the California Desert: How 13 died Riding in One S.U.V.
MIRIAM JORDAN, NY Times: "The maroon Ford Expedition was so heavy its wheels spun at first in the soft desert sand as it cleared a breach in the border wall. It then sped down a dirt road as Mexico disappeared in the rearview mirror. Twenty-five people held on inside, many jammed on the floor, others hunched half-standing between them.
Near the front was José Eduardo Martinez, 16, who had hitched onto the outlaw ride in hopes of joining his uncle in Utah to work construction. Crammed farther in the back, where the seats had been removed, were Zeferina Mendoza, 33, and her cousin, Rosalia Garcia Gonzalez, 34, who had leads on jobs in California’s strawberry fields. At the wheel was Jairo de Jesus Dueñas, 28, who planned to earn money to buy a car to drive for Uber in Mexico.
They made it 15 miles up a desolate country road in California’s Imperial Valley, 110 miles east of San Diego. Perhaps the driver was distracted, or could not see the stop sign in the dawn light. Perhaps he did not realize how long it would take to stop a vehicle loaded with 25 people. The vehicle lurched into the path of a Peterbilt tractor-trailer rig barreling down State Route 115."
Column: Drought is upon us. California’s Senate leader has a plan to keep it from becoming a crisis
GEORGE SKELTON, Los Angeles Times: "California’s big reservoirs are about half empty. We’re heading into another drought. But Sacramento’s vault is overflowing while Washington is pumping in more dollars.
Here’s an idea: Spend some windfall money on no-brainer, quickie public works projects to help us confront the drought and prepare for an unstable climate future.
Credit state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). It’s her idea.
Solar panels atop canals? UC Merced study finds big potential. What do MID, TID think?
JOHN HOLLAND, SacBee: "Placing solar panels atop Central Valley canals could get the state halfway to its goal for climate-friendly power by 2030, a new study suggests.
And the panels could reduce enough evaporation from the canals to irrigate about 50,000 acres, the researchers said. They are from the Merced and Santa Cruz campuses of the University of California.
The idea has already drawn interest from the Turlock Irrigation District, as one of several options for boosting the solar part of its electricity supply."
'Double mutant' variant surfaces in Bay Area. Here's what we know
The Chronicle's KELLIE HWANG: "The Bay Area has yet another coronavirus variant to contend with.
Through genomic sequencing, the Stanford Clinical Virology Lab has identified and confirmed one case of an emerging variant that originated in India, said Lisa Kim, a spokesperson for Stanford Health Care, on Sunday. Stanford is screening seven other presumptive cases; the location of the confirmed case was not disclosed.
The variant is being dubbed the “double mutant” because it carries two mutations in the virus that helps it latch itself onto cells. It could possibly be responsible for the troubling new surge in cases in India. Kim said it is not yet known if the variant is more infectious or resistant to vaccine antibodies."
Rich Californians pay higher taxes than anyone else in America. Is that a model for Biden?
Sac Bee's DAVID LIGHTMAN: "California’s where the LeBron James and Elon Musks of the world face ultra-high state income tax rates that the government uses to provide money to help the homeless, the poor and the unemployed.
So is California, whose top rates are the nation’s highest, a good model for the rest of the country as President Joe Biden tries to increase tax rates while boosting social services spending?
State Controller Betty Yee has found California’s progressive tax system “has been effective at achieving its intended result—reducing the tax burden on those who can least afford to pay.”"
Anxiety, depression, isolation: Bay Area students struggle amid spiking mental health crisis
The Chronicle's JILL TUCKER: "Ninth-grader Andrew Taate felt like he was in a deep hole, one he dug himself from his San Francisco bedroom as he procrastinated for months on school assignments, his motivation absent.
A straight-A student in middle school, Andrew started ninth grade in August at home, his classmates’ tiny faces in square boxes on his computer screen.
“It took a really big mental toll,” the 15-year-old Thurgood Marshall High School student said. He started missing assignments and failing classes, the growing backlog overwhelming him. “I felt a lot of guilt from it.”"
Report: 533M FB users' personal info leaked following 2019 data breach
Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI: "Phone numbers and other personal information of more than 533 million Facebook users was leaked Saturday in a hacking forum following a 2019 data breach, according to a report from Business Insider.
Business Insider reported that users spanning 106 countries, including potentially 32 million users in the U.S. alone, were affected by the leak.
The leak was first detected in January, after a security vulnerability corrected by Facebook in 2019 allowed hackers to scrape information from the social media platform. Vice reported on the leak at the time, and noted that the records scraped by the hacker were dated by several years."
I'll never forget': Good Guys hostage crisis in south Sacramento 30 years later
Sac Bee's ROSALIO AHUMADA: "Some of the memories have faded in the past 30 years, but graphic images are still vivid in his mind as he remembers that 8½-hour standoff with hostage-takers at the Good Guys electronics store in south Sacramento.
The faces of frightened hostages tied-up in the store, the live TV coverage that was broadcast every minute of the crisis to a captivated national audience and the aftermath of the deadly shootout. Those images are still fresh in the mind of retired Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness.
“There are things about that day, if I live to be 100, I’ll never forget,” McGinness said about the hostage crisis at the store on April 4, 1991. “I remember that right now like it was yesterday.”"
Easter services return to Bay Area by reservation -- worshipers 'thrilled to be back'
The Chronicle's SAM WHITING: "Nina Toracca and Julia Kiehn, both 17 and in Easter dresses, had just taken Communion in the form of a wafer handed out in a paper napkin before dashing out to the sidewalk in front of St. Vincent de Paul Church in San Francisco.
“This is so weird,” said Kiehn to Toracca after the two parish grade-school friends hugged in greeting. What was weird was being at church itself.
“This is my first in-person Mass in eight months,” said Toracca. “It feels pretty good.”"
