Someone, the investigator suspected, had intentionally ignited what is known as a “backfire.” The defensive blaze — a potential crime — had burned out of control, setting off spot fires and burning into at least two vineyards, according to records obtained this month by The Chronicle.
The people summoned to the lot on the west side of the famed valley were part of a group that is becoming a bigger part of the wildfire crisis in California. As government resources have been stretched thin, insurance companies, moneyed landowners, wineries and even Lake Tahoe ski resorts have turned to private crews to shield their properties."
Unions representing Kaiser nurses, mental health professionals and others say their members are prepared to strike in sympathy with Kaiser engineers, who have been picketing for better compensation for roughly two months. Kaiser acknowledges that some member services would be affected by the strike but says hospitals will remain open and urgent care available.
Around 40,000 members of three unions representing X-ray technicians, optometrists, phlebotomists, housekeepers and other employees are set to strike for a day if Kaiser and Local 39, which represents hundreds of engineers charged with keeping the health care provider’s buildings running smoothly, don’t reach an agreement by early Thursday morning."
Insurers, government agencies and employers pay Kaiser a set fee to care for each member over a set period of time, and those payments won’t stop when a strike happens, said Paul Ginsburg, a senior fellow with the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at the University of Southern California.
However, he said, that does not mean Kaiser can repeatedly reduce services amid a strike without consequences.
LA Times, LUKE MONEY/RONG-GONG LIN II/CHRISTIAN MARTINEZ: "With confusion mounting over who is eligible for COVID-19 booster shots, California health officials updated the state’s guidelines Tuesday to say that essentially all adults are recommended to get the additional vaccinations.
The move by the California Department of Public Health could be a precursor to federal officials taking similar action by the end of this week. There is increasing expectation that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will officially make booster shots available to all fully vaccinated adults, as long as enough time has passed since receiving their initial vaccination series.
California’s move echoes recent efforts undertaken in places such as New York City, Colorado and New Mexico, as some health officials nationwide have voiced alarm at the sluggish booster uptake and expressed worry about a potential fifth COVID-19 surge that could strike this winter. Average daily coronavirus cases nationwide have risen by 14% over the last week, and average new daily COVID-19 hospital admissions are up by 5%."
“We are still in a risky situation even though we are in a much better situation than we were before,” Dr. Grant Colfax, San Francisco’s health officer, said during a briefing Wednesday.
For the third week in a row, nearly every Bay Area county remained in the orange “substantial” category of coronavirus transmission, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
Should California make solar more expensive? Inside the climate justice battle
SAMMY ROTH, LA Times: "Parakeets and lovebirds were chirping in Marta Patricia Martinez’s frontyard as a crew of solar installers climbed onto her roof.
It was a warm summer afternoon in Watts, a predominantly Latino and Black neighborhood in South Los Angeles. Low-income families faced the specter of punishingly high energy bills if they cranked up the air conditioning.
For Martinez, solar panels offered an almost-too-good-to-be-true solution."
SF Bay Area air quality: What to expect after a foul fog blanketed the region
The Chronicle, JESSICA FLORES: "Air quality across the Bay Area on Wednesday morning appeared to have recovered compared to earlier in the week, when a dense fog fouled by car exhaust and other pollutants blew over the region from the Central Valley.
Fog still blanketed parts of the Bay Area on Wednesday, but air quality conditions were expected to range between “good” and “moderate,” according to air quality tracking websites and meteorologists.
“Be careful on the roads. Don’t use your “brights” and allow extra room for the car in front of you,” the NWS tweeted."\
UC strike averted after lecturers reach 'historic' agreement with UC system
The Chronicle, DOMINIC FRACASSA/NANETTE ASIMOV: "An agreement struck between the University of California and its lecturers averted a two-day strike set to begin Wednesday that would have left thousands of classrooms empty across the state in an effort to call attention to job security and other labor concerns.
Lecturers are nontenured faculty who teach nearly half of UC’s undergraduate classes and many graduate-level courses, numbering at least 4,000 across the university system.
“This is a very positive development for our entire community, especially the students that we serve,” UC President Michael Drake announced at Wednesday’s regents meeting, adding that the contract “honors the vital role our lecturers play” at UC."
More than 500,000 California workers will get $500 pandemic bonuses. Here are the details
JEONG PARK, SacBee: "More than 500,000 caregivers in California will each receive a $500 bonus from the state as soon as January, as it tries to retain workers in a sector long hampered by low wages and high turnover rates.
Those who worked as caregivers for at least two months between March 2020 and March 2021 are eligible. Both in-home caregivers and those providing Medi-Cal home and community-based services such as the Programs for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly would qualify, according to the state’s budget document.
More than $280 million will be paid out in total, with state and the federal government splitting the cost."
Will the Bay Area see holiday shopping shortages? Here's what retail experts are saying
The Chronicle, GWENDOLYN WU: "Those buying holiday gifts in the Bay Area would be wise to wrap up their shopping ASAP — and shouldn’t count on any big sales this year, according to experts.
That’s because inventories are lagging, while demand is way up — so much that Amanda and Richard Weld, the owners of toy shop Tantrum in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood, rented an extra storage unit to hold their inventory.
Not that the dolls, books and puzzles are sitting for long, anyway. Sales have more than doubled at the independent retailer this year compared to the same time last year, as families rush to buy up Hanukkah and Christmas gifts before the festivities begin."
By talking about her abortion, Jackie Speier inspired a generation of lawmakers to do the same
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "There has always been a fearlessness about Rep. Jackie Speier, a courageousness forged when she was shot five times on a Guyana airstrip after the Jonestown massacre in 1978, when she was a young aide to Bay Area Rep. Leo Ryan.
Speier, D-San Mateo, flashed her fearlessness in another way in 2011, when she was the first person on the House floor to talk about her abortion, inspiring a generation of women and other lawmakers to share their stories.
Speier, who announced Tuesday that she was retiring from Congress, put a well-known Washington face on a statistic: 1 in 4 American women has an abortion by the time they she is 45, according to the Guttmacher Institute."
House censures GOP's Gosar over cartoon showing him stab AOC
LA Times, NOLAN D. MCCASKILL: "The tense relationship between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy hit another low Wednesday as they sparred over Democrats’ censure of a Republican member who shared a violent animated video of himself killing a Democratic colleague.
Pelosi (D-San Francisco) questioned McCarthy’s leadership, while McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) all but assured Pelosi that House Republicans would retaliate by stripping Democrats of committee assignments when they regain control of the chamber, a reality that could come as soon as January 2023 after next November’s midterm election.
The latest clash played out as Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) became the first member to be censured by the House in more than 10 years and the second Republican to be stripped of committee assignments this year."
Woman who says CHP officer sexually assaulted her, followed her home to get $4.5 million
RICHARD WINTON, LA Times: "She was a passenger in a Ford Expedition on the Santa Ana Freeway when California Highway Patrol Officer Xavier Aguirre pulled the vehicle over and cited the driver for driving without a license.
That’s when the 47-year-old mother of three claims the nightmare began. After the initial stop, she says Aguirre walked to his cruiser, turned off the video camera and directed her to the back of the SUV.
Then, under the guise of a frisk for weapons, he groped her genitalia and breasts at the side of one of California’s busiest stretches of freeway, she said."
California has a new battle plan for confronting environmental injustice. The nation is watching
LA Times, EVAN HALPER/ANNA M. PHILLIPS/JACKELINE LUNA: "Residents in this economically stressed patch of the San Joaquin Valley gripped by respiratory sickness were not surprised to learn local officials had exempted all four area fuel refineries from fully complying with a new state air quality rule.
“This is a low-income, Hispanic community where a lot of the people are foreign laborers who are not going to say anything,” said Jose Mireles, 59, who lives down the road from a Kern Oil & Refining Co. facility that processes 25,000 barrels of crude oil daily. “Sometimes you are inside your house, the doors are closed, the windows are closed, and you can still smell it.”
What did surprise Mireles was what happened after the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District ignored the pleas of community members and activists by exempting that refinery and three others in the valley from some of the new rules requiring high-tech air monitoring equipment."
