COVID numbers are ticking up in California. Here’s what to know
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "As people crowd movie theaters for “Barbie,” flock to stadiums to see sold-out Taylor Swift concerts and resume their annual trips to Europe, in what largely feels like a summer in the days before the pandemic, highly transmissible variants of the coronavirus have found ideal conditions to reemerge and infect people.
That’s why health officials say a subtle but sustained increase in key COVID-19 indicators is not unexpected. Emergency department visits, test positivity rates and wastewater virus levels in some areas signal a slight uptick in infections, according to the latest figures from the California Department of Public Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, hospital admissions across the United States are up by more than 10% from the previous week."
Dianne Feinstein misstep in key Senate committee raises more questions on lawmakers’ ages
Sac Bee, GILLIAN BRASSIL: "For at least the second time in a week, Democratic colleagues had to prod Sen. Dianne Feinstein on how to vote in a committee meeting, once again raising questions about her fitness for office and whether elected officials should be subject to an age limit.
In Thursday during a meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the California Democrat failed to cast a vote until directed by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, the committee chair."
Newsom’s $380M San Quentin State Prison revamp is underway. Here are some of the details
Sac Bee, GRACE SCULLION: "Lawmakers and activists initially balked at Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to use $380 million to build a “rehabilitation campus” at San Quentin, California’s oldest state prison. The proposal lacked details, they said.
But after some negotiation, the revamp is moving forward. The prison, once home to the country’s largest death row, will become the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, part of Newsom’s push to rethink incarceration."
How much snow still covers California’s mountains this July?
LA Times, ABHINANDA BHATTACHARYYA: "In a typical year, California mountains are largely snow-free at this stage in the summer, with some exceptions at higher elevations. This, however, has not been a typical year. In the last couple of weeks of July, large swaths of the Sierra continued to be covered in snow, making for tricky and in some cases treacherous hiking conditions.
California’s snowpack reached record-high levels this year — 40 million acre-feet at its peak in April, which, melted, would be enough to fill a third of Lake Tahoe. The persisting snow cover has to do with an unusually wet winter and temperatures that remained low well into the spring. Direct sunlight is also usually a driving factor in accelerating snowmelt, but many parts of the state saw a relatively cloudy spring."
PG&E will buy Oakland headquarters for $900 million
The Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Thursday announced it will buy its Oakland headquarters for $900 million, finalizing a plan set in motion three years ago when the utility shifted its core workforce from San Francisco to the East Bay.
That’s $100 million more than PG&E received in 2020 when it sold 1.5 million square feet of downtown San Francisco offices on Market and Beale streets to Hines, the original developer of the Salesforce Tower, which plans to plant a redwood tree grove between buildings to revitalize the site."
California forbids plans to unmask workers at In-N-Out — and most other workplaces
CALMatters, ANA B. IBARRA: "For at least another year and a half, California employers won’t be able to follow In-N-Out’s lead in banning workers from wearing masks on the job.
The state’s COVID-19 workplace rules protecting workers’ rights to decide for themselves whether to wear face coverings are locked in at least until February 2025 and could be extended."
‘Double disadvantage’: These California workers’ pay gap is widest by far
CALMatters, ALEJANDRA REYES VELARDE: "Beatriz Almazan, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, overstayed her tourist visa after someone stole her purse with legal documents inside. Now, four years later, she struggles to find steady work in the San Francisco Bay Area.
It didn’t help that some employers, aware of her legal status, shortchanged her pay when she worked as a cleaner, Almazan said. She added she feels disheartened that her gender and legal status seem to guarantee she’ll be among the lowest paid in this country."
In an L.A. suburb, Chinese ‘border crossers’ seek a new life after harrowing journey
LA Times, JEONG PARK, CINDY CHANG: "Drawn by a message on the WeChat app, the Chinese immigrants lined up for free bags of leafy greens that volunteers handed out from a battered minivan in a Monterey Park parking lot.
Many had recently survived a novel and dangerous journey — flying from China to Ecuador, braving the treacherous rainforest of the Darien Gap on foot, then traversing Mexico by car and bus before crossing the border."
California moves to silence Stanford researchers who got state data to study education issues
EdSource, JOHN FENSTERWALD: "The California Department of Education has threatened to sue two prominent Stanford University education professors to prevent them from testifying in a lawsuit against the department — actions the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California calls an attempt to muzzle them.
The ACLU, in turn, is threatening a lawsuit of its own — against CDE for infringing their and other researchers’ First Amendment rights."
California has adopted a new plan to teach math. Why are people so riled up?
BANG*Mercury News, ELISSA MIOLENE: "California is preparing to overhaul the way its schools teach math with new state guidelines, a 1,000-page effort that’s drawn both staunch support and fierce criticism over the nearly four years it’s taken to produce.
At its core, the new approach reignites a years-old debate about the best way to teach math and how to balance the needs of students with different skill levels."
Taylor Swift is about to boost L.A.’s economy. Striking hotel workers want her to stay away
LA Times, CARLY OLSON, SUHAUNA HUSSAIN, HELEN LI: "Ticket prices aren’t the only eye-popping expense that comes with seeing Taylor Swift perform selections from her 10-album career on the final leg of her record-breaking Eras tour.
With her six Los Angeles shows drawing fans from all over the Southwest, hotels near SoFi Stadium and around the city are booking up, sending rates through the roof."
Fox set to postpone Emmy Awards until January amid actors’ and writers’ strikes
LA Times, STEPHEN BATTAGLIO: "Fox has decided to postpone the 75th Emmy Awards due to the strikes by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.
Fox, which was scheduled to air the ceremony on Sept. 18, is expected to soon announce the event will be rescheduled for January, according to a person familiar with the plans who was not authorized to comment."
New San Francisco police hires reach three-year high, Mayor Breed says
The Chronicle, JD MORRIS: "After long sounding the alarm that San Francisco public safety was suffering due to a dire shortage of police officers, Mayor London Breed’s administration is starting to see signs that ranks of city law enforcement might finally be turning a corner.
The Police Department’s latest class of recruits is the largest the city has seen in three years and job applications have hit a five-year high, according to Breed’s office. Twenty-eight people are enrolled in the most recent Police Academy class that started six weeks ago, compared to just six who are in the previous class that will soon graduate, officials said."
State agency fines Walgreens security guard who killed Banko Brown
The Chronicle, JORDAN PARKER: "A state agency has fined Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony, the security guard who shot and killed Banko Brown in April, $1,500 for violating several security guard rules set by the state.
The California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services said that on the day of the shooting, April 27, Anthony wore a sweatshirt that did not include the required patches identifying him as a private security officer and did not identify the company he was employed by. He also carried an exposed firearm without wearing the appropriate uniform identifying him as a private security guard."
Did San Jose give a $26 million ‘bailout’ to a struggling affordable housing developer?
BANG*Mercury News, ETHAN VARIAN: "Since late last year, San Jose has authorized funneling more than $26 million to one of the city’s largest developers and managers of affordable housing in an effort to shore up its finances, even as local officials raised concern about the nonprofit’s “long-term sustainability,” city records show.
First Community Housing, which owns and operates 16 properties in San Jose, is a crucial player in the city’s push to alleviate its deepening housing crisis. Over the years, the city has invested at least $87 million to help the nonprofit build more than 1,900 affordable apartments."
This Bay Area city has 47% higher rent prices than San Francisco, data shows
The Chronicle, SUSIE NEILSON: "San Francisco has become a national symbol of unaffordable housing, with apartment rentals and home prices that strain the budgets of its upper-middle class residents — let alone average Americans. But there are a few lesser-known towns nearby with rental prices that vastly eclipse even San Francisco’s, according to data from rental listings website Apartment List.
Foster City, a small commuter town in San Mateo County of approximately 34,000, is the most expensive rental market in the Bay Area, according to the latest Apartment List data as of June 2023. Nestled along the bay coast, Foster City is known for its quality schools and near-absence of violent crime (the city has recorded just two homicides since 2010)."
Trump is accused of trying to delete surveillance video in classified documents case
LA Times, SARAH D. WIRE: "Former President Trump faces additional charges in the federal case related to his handling of classified documents, with a superseding indictment filed Thursday in a Florida federal court alleging that he tried to destroy surveillance video at his Mar-a-Lago estate last year.
Trump, his personal aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta, and a new defendant, Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos de Oliveira, 56, are charged with two new counts of obstruction based on allegations that they attempted to delete surveillance video at Mar-a-Lago in late June 2022 after receiving a subpoena ordering that the video be turned over to special counsel Jack Smith’s investigators."
