California exceeds 8 million coronavirus cases, adding 2.5 million since New Year’s
LUKE MONEY, RONG-GONG LIN II and EMILY ALPERT REYES: "California has now surpassed 8 million cumulative coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic, the end result of weeks of unprecedented spread fueled by the highly infectious Omicron variant.
The milestone, equivalent to roughly 1 out of every 5 residents having been infected at some point, comes amid growing signs that Omicron has finally peaked — but not before tearing through California’s communities. Since New Year’s Day, 2.5 million coronavirus cases have been reported in California. That’s fast approaching the entire statewide caseload reported all of last year: 3.1 million.
And if anything, the recent sky-high numbers are likely an undercount, experts say, as many who may be infected may not get tested because they have only mild symptoms or none at all, while others may use self-administered home tests, whose results are not automatically reported to public health officials."
Cal Poly Humboldt name official, first polytech in NorCal
JACKSON GUILFOIL, Eureka Times-Standard: "The new name is official: Humboldt State University is now California State Polytechnic University Humboldt, the third polytechnic school in the CSU system.
Cal Poly Humboldt is the first polytechnic university in Northern California. The polytechnic designation is part of a strategy by the university to increase the breadth of funding opportunities and to boost enrollment by 50% within three years and 100% within seven years. The school struggled with a lack of enrolled students, and as of November 2021, it was 30% under-enrolled — outperforming expectations by three percent — though application numbers have recently increased for fall 2022.
“Cal Poly Humboldt will be a polytechnic for the 21st-century, preparing students to address the urgent issues our society faces,” Cal Poly Humboldt president Tom Jackson said in a prepared statement."
At once despised and admired, California goes its own way
CHUCK McFADDEN, Capitol Weekly: "Americans disagree about California. And at least part of the argument hinges on politics.
Republicans don’t think much of California; Democrats like the place.
According to a recent YouGov study, Republicans list California as the worst state. Only Washington D. C., which is not a state, ranks below California in Republicans’ estimation."
California prisons, nursing homes may be turning corner in omicron wave
MICHAEL McGOUGH, SacBee: "California’s omicron wave of COVID-19 hit a peak for the general population earlier this month, and appears to have also peaked within two of the settings most vulnerable to outbreaks throughout the pandemic: nursing homes and prisons.
California Department of Public Health data show coronavirus transmission metrics continuing to decline, though the state has surpassed 7.5 million lab-confirmed infections since the start of the pandemic not including at-home test results.
CDPH on Wednesday reported a daily case rate of 212 per 100,000 residents and a positivity rate of 18.7%, both of which are well above pre-omicron levels but are improvements from early January."
CSU panel recommends eliminating the use of SAT and ACT exams for admission
ASHLEY A. SMITH, EdSource: "The nation’s largest public university system has signaled plans to eliminate the use of standardized tests like the SAT and ACT for admission to its 23 campuses.
California State University trustees heard a recommendation Wednesday from the system’s admissions advisory committee to remove the standardized testing requirement and replace it with a so-called multifactor admission score that allows colleges to consider 21 factors.
The factors would vary by campus and include work experience, leadership roles, extracurricular activities and special status such as foster youth, first-generation or military."
Biden will get a Supreme Court pick. Kamala Harris and California’s senators will be pivotal in the confirmation battle
TAI KOPAN, Chronicle: "Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement sets up the Biden administration’s first Supreme Court confirmation battle — and between the state’s senators and Vice President Kamala Harris, Californians will be an integral part of it.
Breyer, the oldest justice on the court and a liberal jurist, will retire at the end of the Supreme Court term this summer, numerous news organizations reported Wednesday. The news thrilled progressives, who had called for him to step down to ensure President Biden could name a replacement while his party controls Washington, preventing Republicans from further flipping the court as they did after the death of former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The retirement also sets up a high-stakes showdown in the 50-50 Senate. Biden will need all the Democratic votes, potentially including Harris as the Senate’s tiebreaker, to get his nominee confirmed."
S.F. federal judge: Justice Breyer’s reputation as a pragmatist doesn’t tell the whole story
BOB EGELKO, Chronicle: "A San Francisco federal judge who was a law clerk for Stephen Breyer 20 years ago says the retiring Supreme Court justice has tried to make the law work for everyone and has been unfairly disparaged as a compromiser.
“Many call Justice Breyer a pragmatist, and on one level that’s true: He’s always focused on making sure the law achieves practical results,” U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria told The Chronicle. “He wants the law to work for ordinary people and believes it should not create obstacles for the public officials who are trying in good faith to tackle our society’s problems."
"But the word ‘pragmatist’ could also connote someone who compromises principles or performs his work dispassionately. Justice Breyer is definitely not a pragmatist in that sense,” Chhabria said. “He cares so deeply about these cases, and he works so hard to get the court to reach the right result. I’ve never met anyone who cared more about their work, and about our democracy, than Justice Breyer.”
California to bring in $2.3 billion for drug treatment services as cities sign off on oxycontin settlement
CATHIE ANDERSON, SacBee: "The lion’s share of California cities and counties have signed off on a national settlement with four major pharmaceutical players to resolve allegations that they fueled the opioid crisis, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Wednesday, and that deal will award roughly $2.34 billion to state and local governments.
“We are one step closer to bringing much-needed relief and resources to communities in California and throughout the country,” Bonta said. “Whether a family member, neighbor, or friend – far too many of us know someone whose life has been upended or tragically cut short because of opioid addiction. This settlement will not only hold Johnson & Johnson, Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen accountable for their role in fueling the devastating opioid crisis, it is expected to bring billions of dollars to California to help those suffering with substance use disorders access the help they need to recover.”
The settlement was negotiated with Cardinal, Johnson & Johnson, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen, and it was approved by cities and counties representing roughly 97% of the state’s population."
San Francisco gun violence rose last year, with shootings up 33%
MEGAN CASSIDY, Chronicle: "Gun violence in San Francisco rose significantly over the past year, a disturbing trend that contributed to an accompanying rise in homicides, police said, and tracks with other cities throughout the country.
Fatal and nonfatal shooting incidents jumped by 33% — from 167 to 222 — from 2020 to last year, while homicides rose from 48 to 56.
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott presented those statistics and other citywide crime data to news media Wednesday, highlighting which types of crimes waxed and waned throughout 2021 compared to a year earlier."
Cannabis social equity programs leave many California entrepreneurs demoralized, depleted
MARISA GERBER, LA Times: "The very thing that had once torn Ingrid Archie from her daughters and led to her incarceration now made her bubble with unbridled optimism.
It was early 2019, a year after recreational pot sales began in California under Proposition 64, and politicians and activists were proclaiming that Archie and others who grew up in communities disproportionately criminalized by the “war on drugs” could now profit off the legal cannabis industry as entrepreneurs.
Buoyed by that promise — “social equity,” as it became known — Archie, then in her late-30s, began the process of applying for a retail cannabis license. Years earlier, she’d been convicted of possessing pot for sale. Now, she dreamed of opening a holistic community center in South L.A. that would sell edibles, hold homeownership seminars and provide mental health services. Finally, she thought, a pathway to generational wealth for many in her community."
Column: California is headed for another bruising vaccine fight. Newsom should embrace a school mandate
GEORGE SKELTON, LA Times: "Children are getting COVID-19, being hospitalized and dying. Sure, it’s in relatively small numbers. But how many kids’ deaths must there be to count as significant?
Just one if you’re the parent. Or a brother or sister or a grandparent.
So, when opponents of mandatory vaccinations as a condition for being allowed in a classroom protest that COVID-19 is not a big deal for children, I think about the impact on my family if a grandkid were to come down deathly sick."
Sacramento sheriff sued over jail attack that left mentally ill inmate in coma
SAM STANTON, SacBee: "Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones and his office are being sued over the beating of a mentally ill inmate inside the Main Jail last September that left the man with catastrophic brain injuries that his lawyer says will keep him on life support as long as he lives.
Civil rights attorney Mark Merin filed the lawsuit in federal court in Sacramento Wednesday on behalf of Anthony Cravotta II, 45, who authorities say was attacked in his general population cell on Sept. 26 by his cellmate,
Lemar Burleson, another mentally ill inmate. At the time of the attack, Cravotta had been waiting for more than five months to be transferred to a state hospital because he had been found mentally incompetent in February 2021 to stand trial, the lawsuit says."
L.A. hasn’t cited any businesses for violating proof-of-vaccination rules
EMILY ALPERT REYES and MARISSA EVANS, LA Times: "It was a decision that grabbed attention across the country: Los Angeles leaders had voted to require indoor restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and many other businesses to check that customers were vaccinated against COVID-19.
The L.A. rules made headlines as some of the strictest in the nation. Opponents — including members of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County — phoned into the City Council meeting in October to decry the decision and vowed to overturn the ordinance at the ballot box. City leaders were unmoved.
“This is no longer negotiable,” City Council President Nury Martinez told reporters in the fall. “The stakes are too high.”
