For many COVID-19 vaccine opponents, no jab means no job
LAT, BY JAWEED KALEEM, KURTIS LEE: "For eight years, Mike Miller has patrolled the grounds of the Snake River Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison in east Oregon. His $74,000 salary has paid for his home across the state line in Boise, Idaho, and allowed his family to home-school their three kids.
But next week, he’ll face his bosses at a “pre-dismissal hearing” for violating the terms of his job. Miller expects to be fired for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.
“The vaccines probably do work for a lot of people,” said Miller, 38, a self-described born-again Christian who rejects the shots because cell lines derived from fetuses aborted decades ago were used in their development. “Our religious convictions tell us that abortion is wrong. We cannot use these vaccines.”"
California says most halted disability claims are fraudulent
AP, ADAM BEAM: "After suspending 345,000 disability checks because of fraud concerns, California officials on Thursday said nearly all of those claims were associated with criminals trying to trick the state into paying them.
The Employment Development Department announced this month that they had halted payments on those 345,000 claims associated with 27,000 suspicious doctors. On Thursday, the department announced it had verified the identity of just 485 of those doctors, meaning about 98% of the claims are likely fraudulent.
“The few providers that were not fraud — but instead victims of identity theft — are completing verification along with their patients to then resume certifying claims,” the department said in a news release."
How the Omicron Surge Is Straining California’s Health Care Workers
SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, NY Times: "Even as the number of new coronavirus cases appears to be tapering off in California, the situation at our hospitals remains dire.
Operations are being canceled, ambulances have nowhere to unload their patients, and people coming to emergency rooms for care sometimes wait hours, or even days, for a bed.
State projections show that the number of Covid-19 patients in California hospitals is most likely peaking this week. That’s good news, but it also means we’re just about halfway through the current hospital surge."
Sacramento man indicted on charges of plotting to kill or kidnap Biden, Harris, Fauci
SAM STANTON, SacBee: "A federal grand jury in Iowa has indicted a Sacramento man on charges of attempting to kill or kidnap President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci as part of a bizarre cross-country plot that his lawyer has said may stem from mental illness.
Kuachua Brillion Xiong, 25, a former Merced grocery clerk who lived in Sacramento, faces a five-count indictment unsealed and filed in court Wednesday that also charges him with making threats against Biden and Harris as well as former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
He also is charged with attempting to kill or kidnap Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky; U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California and Republican U.S. Sen Mitt Romney of Utah.
Metro slashes bus service amid driver shortage
LAT, BY RACHEL URANGA: "Yolanda Mejia scrolled through her phone as she waited, again, for a late bus on Wednesday at the intersection of Slauson and Vermont avenues in South Los Angeles.
“They come super late,” said Mejia, a 37-year-old cook who relies on buses to get to her job. When they do come, they are full and sometimes pass her by, she said.
She’s not alone. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus service has been reduced systemwide by as much as 18% since September as the agency struggles to find enough bus drivers amid the Omicron-fueled COVID-19 surge. At least one heavily used line in South L.A. has seen rides fall by 42% in the last month, Metro said."
San Francisco judge unmoved by testimony that D.A. investigator withheld evidence in SFPD beating case
The Chronicle, Megan Cassidy, Rachel Swan: "An investigator with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said she was pressured by prosecutors to remove certain pieces of evidence from an affidavit against Terrance Stangel, a San Francisco police officer facing battery and assault charges for beating a man with a baton.
A judge overseeing Stangel’s case, however, said no significant evidence appeared to be suppressed, and that the allegations seemed unlikely to make a difference the officer’s case.
Investigator Magen Hayashi testified Thursday that she felt she could be fired if she did not sign the affidavit as prosecutors wished during a hearing in which attorneys for Stangel argued that the case against him should be dismissed. Hayashi’s affidavit, containing the findings from her investigation, was presented as evidence of probable cause to charge Stangel."
Sacramento City Unified moves to fire teacher who used racial slur in class discussion
MARCUS D. SMITH SacBee: "The Sacramento City Unified School District is dismissing a middle school teacher who used racial epithets during a classroom lecture last year, according to the district’s new community liaison on racial incidents.
Katherine Sanders, a seventh-grade teacher at Kit Carson International Academy, will be terminated from the district, said attorney Mark Harris, the district’s community liaison.
After an investigation, the district determined that her conduct was severe enough to call for her dismissal, Harris said.
Man struck with plastic bat says D.A. Boudin’s office ignored him. Records show he was contacted more than two dozen times
The Chronicle, Rachel Swan, Megan Cassidy: "San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin issued a rebuttal Thursday against a man who said his office failed to ensure his rights as a victim after he was struck with a plastic bat.
A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office presented a starkly different version of events, corroborated in documents separately obtained by The Chronicle.
The records detail how a victim advocate from the office reached out to the victim, Anh Lê, more than two dozen times, leaving several messages in the week leading up to a plea deal for Jimmy Tanner, the defendant who got into an altercation with Lê on Nov. 2, 2019."
Should you get a second booster shot? Here’s what UCSF’s Dr. Bob Wachter thinks
The Chroncle, Danielle Echeverria: "As some countries begin to offer a second booster shot — a fourth dose — of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, should you consider getting one?
Given the data that exists right now, Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of medicine at UCSF, says he would skip it.
The doctor took to Twitter to explain that the situation is complicated, and as with most things concerning the virus, rapidly evolving."
‘You should be voted out of office.’ Elon Musk tweets about California elected official
ANDREW SHEELER, SacBee: "Billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk waded into California state politics with a tweet against State Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on Thursday.
It started when Lara sent out a tweet about Musk on Thursday afternoon.
“Yesterday @elonmusk reportedly told investors he’s ‘pushing very hard’ to change the rules on telematics for California drivers. Push all you want, but we won’t bend on protecting consumer data, privacy and fair rates,” Lara wrote.
Police say they’re ‘closer than ever’ to solving Doodler serial killer cold case
The Chronicle, Kevin Fagan: "Encouraged by new attention in the cold-case investigation of a serial killer who terrorized San Francisco’s gay community in the 1970s, police will announce Thursday that it is doubling the reward to $200,000 for information leading to the capture and conviction of the notorious “Doodler.”
The announcement will come 48 years to the day after the first victim was found lying at the water’s edge off Ocean Beach on Jan. 27, 1974."
The San Francisco Police Department is also expected to confirm it is adding a probable sixth victim to the total of gay men whose bodies were found along beaches and parklands on the western edge of the city in 1974 and 1975. The five known victims were stabbed to death, but the newly identified victim — a 52-year-old lawyer named Warren Andrews — was beaten with a rock and a tree branch.
Biden vows to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court as Breyer makes retirement official
LAT, BY ELI STOKOLS: "President Biden praised Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who made his retirement official at the White House on Thursday, vowing that his choice to replace him will be a Black woman and that he plans to announce the choice by the end of next month.
“I’ve made no decision except one: The person I will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity,” Biden said. “And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue.”
Appearing with Breyer before a small group of reporters in the Roosevelt Room just outside the Oval Office, Biden called it “a bittersweet day for me,” noting that he and Breyer “go back a long way,” and praising him as “an exemplary justice” and “model public servant a time of great division in this country.”"
