What the latest science tells us about the fast-spreading omicron variant
LISA M. KRIEGER, Mercury News: "As COVID-19’s omicron variant spreads in the U.S., new details are emerging in a research spotlight that grows larger each day.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the variant’s prevalence has jumped sevenfold in a single week. Globally, it has been detected in 65 countries, including places where the delta variant had a very strong foothold.
Also on Tuesday, a deluge of new data offered greater insight into the variant’s tenacity, transmission and severity. This is what’s been discovered."
San Francisco offices, gyms granted reprieve from state mask mandate as California clarifies rules
Chronicle, RYAN KOST/CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO/CATHERINE HO: "San Francisco offices and gyms where everyone is fully vaccinated will not need to return to masking, after California on Tuesday granted last-minute exemptions from its new, universal face mask rule to some counties.
“This refinement acknowledges the hard work of the people of San Francisco throughout the pandemic, including the ways in which we have maintained reasonable protections heading into the holiday season,” San Francisco’s Department of Public Health said in a statement.
Contra Costa and Marin counties will also receive exemptions, those counties confirmed Tuesday night — meaning that rules already in place continue to apply. That means that in Contra Costa, like San Francisco, offices and gyms that host fully vaccinated people will continue to be exempt from masking. In Marin, masks will continue to be recommended but not required for vaccinated people in certain indoor spaces (unvaccinated people must wear masks in those settings)."
Has there been a California exodus? Turns out fewer people than usual are moving in
DAVID LIGHTMAN SacBee: "A new study released Wednesday found no big exodus of people leaving California for other states during the COVID pandemic.
But California is still losing population to domestic migration, because fewer people than usual are moving in from other parts of the United States .
“Every single county has seen fewer people moving in from out of state since the start of the pandemic,” said the nonpartisan California Policy Lab."
Rain prompts flood rescues, downs trees and forces evacuations
LAT, JONAH VALDEZ: "As Tuesday’s powerful storm pounded Southern California, firefighters plucked a man from the Los Angeles River and searched for other possible victims, while emergency crews in Orange County rescued homeowners trapped by mudslides.
Around 7:50 a.m., fire dispatchers received a call from a man who had been swept into a small tributary of the L.A. River in Sylmar, the Los Angeles Fire Department said. Usually shallow, gentle streams, the river and its offshoots were transformed by the storm into torrents.
The man was carried about half a mile and into a tunnel that runs underground near Dronfield Avenue and Hubbard Street, said Nicholas Prange, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. In the darkness, he managed to grab an object to stop himself from being swept further downstream, Prange said."
Under ‘realignment,’ private prison firms look to the counties
Capitol Weekly, SCOTT SORIANO: "In 2019, California outlawed private prisons. By the time the ban went live in January 2020, the world’s biggest private prison contractor, the Florida-based GEO Group, lost $223 million in contracts with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
The new law, AB 32, authored by then-Assemblymember Rob Bonta, an Alameda Democrat, was approved handily by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, and many Californians thought that the cancellations of private prison contacts meant that the state would be rid of the prison profiteers.
But that was not to be."
Santa Clara County civil grand jury makes formal corruption accusations against sheriff
ROBERT SALONGA, Mercury News: "Santa Clara County’s civil grand jury has taken a dramatic step that could lead to the removal of Sheriff Laurie Smith following the panel’s investigation into allegations of corruption and jail mismanagement in the last half of her two-decade tenure.
The jury dropped its bombshell Tuesday, filing an official declaration in Superior Court accusing Smith of seven corruption-related acts. Six involve ongoing criminal indictments alleging Smith engaged in political favoritism and traded favors by leveraging her control over issuing concealed-carry weapons permits. The seventh accuses her of failing to cooperate with the county law-enforcement auditor in an investigation into negligence allegations stemming from a 2018 jail inmate’s injury that led to a $10 million county settlement.
Smith has been ordered to appear in court Jan. 12. Her personal attorney, Allen Ruby, said Tuesday evening that the sheriff, who repeatedly has denied the accusations, defended her performance and rejected calls for her resignation, plans to formally object to the accusation, which would prompt a civil trial on the matter."
Golden Gate Bridge officials have detailed the plan to stop its humming. And how much it’ll cost
LAT, SAM WHITING: "The maddening hum of safety slats on the pedestrian handrails of the Golden Gate Bridge will finally be silenced under a recently released proposal by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.
The fix — devised and tested by bridge engineers in consultation with aerodynamic and acoustic experts — calls for attaching U-shaped aluminum clips containing a thin rubber sleeve to all 12,000 vertical slats on the railings.
The rubber will absorb vibrations where the vertical slats meet the horizontal rails, and reduce 75% of the vibrations that cause the bridge to whistle under high-wind conditions. The clips will be painted the signature bridge color of International Orange in order to blend in with bridge’s architecture."
Column: Big utilities winning battle over solar power
DAN WALTERS, CalMatters: "The emails arrived just minutes apart on Monday.
The first, from a group called Affordable Clean Energy for All, proclaimed “CPUC Takes Steps to Fix the Unfair Customer Cost Shift Created by 25-Year-Old Rooftop Solar Program.”
The second, from a rival organization, the Environment California Research & Policy Center, countered with “California Public Utility Commission fails Californians by gutting bedrock solar program.”
These photos of snow-covered Mount Diablo are like a winter wonderland
Chronicle, DOMINIC FRACASSA: "The atmospheric river that raked over the Bay Area this week left a picturesque dusting of snow on Mount Diablo Tuesday morning.
The total amount of precipitation that fell on the Contra Costa County peak — both rain and snow — totaled 5.6 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
But it was enough for some winter-weather revelers, equipped with gloves and ski caps, to make snowballs and even a modest snowman on the mountain, as captured by a Chronicle photographer."
L.A. school board delays enforcement of student vaccine mandate to fall 2022
LAT, MELISSA GOMEZ: "The Los Angeles school board agreed Tuesday to delay enforcement of its student COVID-19 vaccine mandate from Jan. 10 to fall 2022, citing concerns over disrupting learning and the monumental task of transferring tens of thousands of students into independent study.
The decision came after interim Supt. Megan K. Reilly laid out a plan Friday to push back the deadline because the district was confronted with the reality that about 28,000 students had not complied and under the rules would be barred from in-person schooling and enrolled in independent study.
So far, 87% of L.A. Unified students 12 and older have shown proof of vaccination, obtained a medical exemption or received a rare extension, a high rate that Reilly cited when she proposed the delay. The district’s independent study program, City of Angels, was overwhelmed in the fall with about 16,000 students — and district officials did not want to send so many children back to online learning."
S.F. school board cuts classroom, administrative spending in bid to avoid state takeover ()
Chronicle, TRISHA THADANI/MALLORY MOENCHE: "Mayor London Breed wants to significantly boost the police presence in the Tenderloin over the next few months as part of a public safety blitz, which includes a crackdown on those who are selling drugs — and those who are using them — in the long-troubled neighborhood.
On Tuesday, Breed called for increased funding for police overtime to help pay for the move, which includes tackling the resale of stolen goods. She told residents last week that she believes policing is an “important tool” to address some of the neighborhood’s woes, which include widespread drug dealing, a surge in fatal overdoses and a spike in gun violence.
“It’s time that the reign of criminals who are destroying our city ... come(s) to an end,” Breed said at a news conference in City Hall on Tuesday, flanked by department heads and Supervisors Catherine Stefani and Ahsha Safaí. “It comes to an end when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement, more aggressive with the changes in our policies and less tolerant of all the bulls — that destroyed our city.”
The security flaw freaking out the internet: What we know about the ‘Log4Shell’ threat
AP, FRANK BAJAK: "Security experts say it’s one of the worst computer vulnerabilities they’ve ever seen. They say state-backed Chinese and Iranian hackers and rogue cryptocurrency miners have already seized on it.
The Department of Homeland Security is sounding a dire alarm, ordering federal agencies to urgently eliminate the bug, dubbed “Log4Shell,” because it’s so easily exploitable — and telling those with public-facing networks to put up firewalls if they can’t be sure. The affected software is small and often undocumented.
Detected in an extensively used utility called Log4j, the flaw lets internet-based attackers easily seize control of everything from industrial control systems to web servers and consumer electronics. Simply identifying which systems use the utility is a challenge; it is often hidden under layers of other software."
FINDING THE BIG BANG: How the new Webb telescope could reveal the origins of the universe
LAT, RAHUL MUKHERJEE/LORENA IñIGUEZ ELEBEE: "When the James Webb Space Telescope launches on Dec. 22, it will begin a multiyear mission to help humankind catch a glimpse of the origins of the universe.
The telescope, equipped with the most sophisticated array of stargazing equipment ever assembled, will be able to peer into the farthest reaches of space, some 13.8 billion light-years away. The data it collects will allow earthbound scientists to better understand the formation of stars and galaxies just after the big bang.
“When the lights turned on in the universe, that’s what Webb is trying to see,” said Paul Geithner, a NASA project manager who worked on the telescope."
S.F. metro area retains No. 1 spot as most expensive place to live in the U.S.
LAT, ROLAND LI BY/NAMI SUMIDA: "The San Francisco metro area was the nation’s most expensive place to live in 2020 for the sixth year in a row, and California was the third-most expensive state, according to federal data released Tuesday.
Prices in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley metropolitan statistical area were 17.4% higher than the national average, with apartment rents 107.4% higher, though rental data incorporated the year 2019 instead of 2020 because the pandemic disrupted housing data surveys. The New York-Newark-Jersey City region was second at 15.5% more expensive than the national average, followed by Honolulu at 13.8% higher and the San Diego area at 13.4% above the average. The regional price rankings weigh rental housing, goods, utilities and other expenses against the national average."
House votes to hold former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress
LAT, ANUMITA KAUR: "The House voted on Tuesday to hold former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with a special committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, setting the stage for possible criminal prosecution of an advisor to former President Trump.
The vote, 222 to 208, was the second time in recent months that the House had held a former Trump advisor in contempt, and it was the first time since the 1830s that the chamber had leveled such a sanction on one of its former members. Two Republicans joined all Democrats present in voting for the measure.
“Mr. Meadows is a central participant and witness to the events of Jan. 6,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House committee investigating the insurrection, said before the contempt vote. “If he can get away with ignoring the law, and witnesses summoned before Congress can merely pick and choose when they comply, our power of oversight will be gone.”"
