Vince Fong allowed to run for Kevin McCarthy’s seat in Congress
CALMatters, YUE STELLA YU: "Vince Fong, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s chosen successor, can run for Congress because the state law restricting candidates from running in multiple races simultaneously no longer applies, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled today.
The ruling — resulting from a last-ditch lawsuit filed by Fong to remain in the race when his candidacy was rejected by state election officials — revives a haphazard succession plan for McCarthy’s seat after the longtime Bakersfield member of Congress announced his unexpected exit by the end of the year."
Here’s who is running for Congress in Sacramento-area districts. Who are the incumbents?
Sacramento Bee, GILLIAN BRASSIL: "California’s secretary of state has released its list of certified candidates to be on the March 5 primary ballot for Congress.
The top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the Nov. 5 general election. Incumbents — Democrats and Republicans — are largely expected to prevail across areas in and around Sacramento."
Google nears $5 billion settlement in ‘incognito’ mode privacy lawsuit
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "Google has tentatively settled a $5 billion lawsuit accusing the Mountain View tech giant of secretly tracking the internet activities of millions of users who believed its Chrome browser protected their privacy while in “incognito” mode, according to court documents.
The class action lawsuit, scheduled for a Feb. 5 trial, was temporarily halted by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland on Thursday after a preliminary settlement was reached between Google and the consumers’ lawyers."
Trump will be on California primary ballot in March, secretary of state says
The Chronicle, JORDAN PARKER: "Former President Donald Trump will be on California’s primary ballot this March despite efforts to remove him, Shirley Weber, the state’s secretary of state, announced Thursday.
California’s primary election is scheduled for March 5, 2024. Trump will be among several candidates vying for the Republican nomination for next year’s general election."
READ MORE -- Donald Trump will stay on California GOP presidential primary ballot -- LA Times, JEONG PARK
Kern County’s 2020 free speech violations trigger new safeguards. Will they work?
CALMatters, NICOLE FOY: "Three years ago, a string of Facebook posts spelled doom for a Kern County plan to curb COVID-19’s path through vulnerable communities.
The virus had already wreaked havoc in the conservative, agricultural county by October 2020, when the Kern County Public Health Department struck what would be a nearly $1.5 million deal with local organizations and an associated small business to get crucial information about COVID-19 to hard-hit ZIP codes and vulnerable groups."
Longer prison sentences for fentanyl trafficking
CALMatters, NIGEL DUARA: "People convicted of distributing fentanyl will face stiffer criminal penalties in the coming year under a new law shaped by rising overdose deaths.
The law increases the penalty for selling or distributing more than one kilogram of fentanyl by an automatic addition of three years to the original sentence."
They became unlikely crusaders for LGBT immigrant rights. And they just overcame one final hurdle
The Chronicle, ERIN ALLDAY: "Shirley Tan and Jay Mercado can recall every moment of the January 2009 morning when Tan was taken from their Pacifica home by federal immigration authorities.
Mercado was making breakfast. Tan was in the shower. Their twin boys, age 12, were sleeping. It was 6 a.m. when the knock came. The two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the door were huge. When they put handcuffs on Tan before sticking her in the back of an SUV, Mercado threw a coat over her pajamas and ran outside to beg them to stop."
Dramatic before-and-after images show how much water California reservoirs have accumulated
LA Times, TERRY CASTLEMAN: "With the winter storm season ramping up, rainfall across the state has begun to refill reservoirs.
By Tuesday, water reservoirs were at about 64% capacity, well above the 30-year average of 55% for the month of December."
New storm bringing more rain, dangerous surf to California as Ventura cleans up after massive waves
LA Timers, KAREN GARCIA, CHRISTIAN MARTINEZ, ASHLEY AHN: "A new rainstorm was expected to move into Southern California on Friday night as residents in some coastal communities dug out from big waves that damaged homes, closed beaches and left several people injured.
High surf battered the California coast on Thursday, with Ventura County particularly hard hit. The conditions will ease Friday, but dangerous waves will return Saturday when Southern California beaches could see 6- to 12-foot waves, with more rain expected, according to the National Weather Service."
Bay Area COVID surge: What’s changed in navigating risk and exposure now?
The Chronicle, DANIELLE ECHEVERRIA: "With COVID-19 on the rise in the Bay Area and throughout the country as people travel and gather for the holidays, how should you navigate risk and handle exposures in the post-pandemic era?
Even though public health restrictions have long been lifted, general guidelines around risk and exposure established during the pandemic still apply, according to at least one well-known Bay Area health expert — and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers an online calculator that can help you determine the measures you should take in your specific situation."
EdSource’s Best of 2023: Feature stories
EdSource, STAFF: "In 2023, EdSource highlighted the work of fascinating, impactful people and innovative programs making waves in education across California.
As the year comes to a close, the EdSource staff shares some of their favorite features of 2023."
University of California poised to buy former Westside Pavilion
LA Times, RACHEL URANGA, ROGER VINCENT: "The University of California appears poised to buy the former Westside Pavilion, which was once one of L.A.’s hottest malls but later converted to office space for rent to companies such as Google, according to state records and two real estate sources with knowledge of the deal.
One of the sources, who was not authorized to speak about the project, said the deal had closed."
Davis serial stabbing suspect deemed competent by state hospital, will return to face trial
Sacramento Bee, ISHANI DESAI: "Carlos Reales Dominguez, the 21-year-old man accused of a deadly stabbing spree that killed two men and left a woman critically injured in Davis last spring, has been deemed mentally fit to face criminal charges.
In the latest twist to a saga that has gripped the college town since April, state hospital officials in Atascadero deemed the former UC Davis student “certified competent,” the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday."
Asian Americans go bonkers over Ohtani for his superhuman baseball prowess — and for shattering stereotypes
LA Times, TERESA WATANABE: "Katherine Siew, a Pasadena attorney, has never much followed baseball — until Shohei Ohtani grabbed her attention by signing with the Dodgers in a record-smashing 10-year, $700-million deal. She felt a surge of pride that the superstar athlete was Asian, representing her heritage at the highest level of excellence in a path relatively few Asian Americans tread.
“You don’t really see many Asian faces on TV across any field, let alone sports,” said Siew, 34, who is Chinese American. “I think if growing up, we had seen examples in arts or sports ... I could point to that and say: ‘Look, Mom, we can be successful in that, too. It’s not just always doctor, lawyer.’ I just hope it gives the younger generation a different chance.”"
San Jose cop behind racist texts had large cache of weapons seized because of message about shooting Black attorney
BANG*Mercury News, GABRIEL GRESCHLER: "A San Jose police officer who resigned in November when his racist text messages surfaced — including one threatening to shoot a Black attorney — also had a large stockpile of weapons seized by authorities due to a gun violence restraining order against him, the Mercury News has learned.
Mark McNamara, who joined the SJPD in 2017, cannot access his 18 firearms until May 2024, according to court documents filed in November. The confiscation of his weapons was initiated amid an ongoing civil lawsuit against the city over a controversial shooting where McNamara wounded a man at a downtown San Jose taqueria in 2022."
Oakland Police Commission agrees to reopen police chief hiring process
DAVID HERNANDEZ, SARAH RAVANI: "The Oakland Police Commission announced Thursday it will reopen its application process for the position of the city’s police chief and send another list of finalists to the mayor in March.
Chair Marsha Peterson made the announcement after the commission met behind closed doors and hours after Mayor Sheng Thao’s office said she had asked the commissioners to take another look at the current pool of applicants, as well as consider new ones."
It’s not just the Bay Area — the number of affordable homes is plummeting across California
The Chronicle, CHRISTIAN LEONARD: "While buying a Bay Area home became an even harder prospect in 2023, affordability in other areas suffered even more. This year was the most unaffordable for buyers nationwide in at least a decade, with the number of affordable homes plummeting in many California cities.
That’s according to a new report from real estate brokerage site Redfin, which found that only about 16% of homes listed in 2023 were priced at an affordable level for their areas. In 2022, that figure was at 21%, itself a steep drop from 50% in 2013, the earliest year for which Redfin has data."
