Health officer: Adapt, because coronavirus 'will be with us for a long time'
The Chronicle's LAUREN HERNANDEZ: "Santa Clara County’s health officer issued a new health order Thursday that puts in place long term measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus and warned residents that they must adapt to a new way of life as COVID-19 “will be with us for a long time.”
Dr. Sara Cody’s order requires risk reduction measures to be put in place “across all business sectors and activities” to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus. Businesses must require workers to do their jobs remotely if possible; businesses are “strongly urged to move as many operations as possible outdoors,” and businesses must not exceed density limitations at their facilities. It says the total number of workers at a facility cannot “exceed one personnel per 250 gross square feet, and the total number of customers or members of the public may not exceed one person per 150 square feet of space open to the public.”
“This virus has proven time and again in communities around the country and around the world that it will come back with a vengeance if you let your guard down,” Cody said during a news conference. “We will not let our guard down here in Santa Clara County."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: California coronavirus outlook worsens: Infection rate rises, more counties on watch list -- LA Times's RONG-GONG LIN II/MARIA L LA GANGA/KRISTI STURGILL; COVID-19 hospitalizations hit new peaks in the Bay Area -- The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN; No, wearing a mask does not cut off your oxygen. Here are the facts. -- The Chronicle's AIDIN VAZIRI; Facing the facts: Covering mouth, nose best shield against virus, experts say -- The Chronicle's CATHERINE HO; How did we get here? California struggling to stay on top of pandemic -- The Chronicle's ERIN ALLDAY; Houses of worship told to 'discontinue singing' under order from Newsom as pandemic worsens -- Sac Bee's DALE KASLER; Sacramento County releases amended health order aimed at slowing coronavirus resurgence -- Sac Bee's ROSALIO AHUMADA; Sacramento County breaks another daily coronavirus record, surpassing 4,000 total infections -- Sac Bee's VINCENT MOLESKI
Women say they were groped, violated by police during L.A. curfew arrests
KEVIN RECTOR, LA Times: "It was just getting dark when Julia Dupuis was handcuffed on a curfew violation and walked by two Los Angeles police officers to a fence on the side of an empty church, beyond the watchful eye of nearby apartment residents and a good 15 feet from the next protester.
“Do you think it’s a female?” she heard one of the male cops say to the other, with a laugh.
Dupuis, who is gender nonconforming but identifies as a woman, felt paralyzed with fear. The officers had already taken her ID, which identifies her as female, and asked her name. They didn’t appear confused about her gender, she said, just keen to mock it."
California's November ballot is set. Here are the statewide measures you'll vote on
Sac Bee's ANDREW SHEELER: "Come November, California voters are going to have plenty of decisions to make.
Leaving aside the hotly contested presidential election, as well as numerous state and local races, California voters also will have to decide on a dozen different ballot measures.
Those measures touch on issues as varied as stem cell research, affirmative action and restoring the right to vote for parolees."
'You started the corona!' As anti-Asian hate incidents explode, climbing past 800, activists push for aid
LA Times's ANH DO: "Wearing their masks, Donalene Ferrer and two other generations of family members were walking along an Oceanside neighborhood in April when a car pulled up and a woman yelled: “You started the corona!”
The accuser, with a baby and a toddler in tow, turned out to be her mother’s neighbor, Ferrer said. Still in shock, the victim said she stepped near the woman to ask, “Why are you targeting us? I’m a nurse and my father fought for this country. You shouldn’t be teaching your children racism.”
Ferrer, 41, a Filipina, remembered the unmasked woman taunting them back: “Come over here. Say it to my face.” But worried that the person might be carrying a hidden weapon, Ferrer said she left."
California severely short on firefighting crews after COVID-19 lockdown at prison camps
Sac Bee's RYAN SABALOW/JASON POHL: "As California enters another dangerous fire season, the COVID-19 pandemic has depleted the ranks of inmate fire crews that are a key component of the state’s efforts to battle out-of-control wildfires
This week, state prison officials announced they had placed 12 of the state’s 43 inmate fire camps on lockdown due to a massive outbreak at a Northern California prison in Lassen County that serves as the training center for fire crews.
Until the lockdown lifts, only 30 of the state’s 77 inmate crews are available to fight a wildfire in the north state, prison officials said."
READ MORE related to Prisons & Public Safety: See protest at Gov. Newsom's home about coronavirus conditions in state prisons -- Sac Bee's JASON PIERCE
Bay Area's undocumented restaurant workers may need most help, get the least
The Chronicle's SOLEIL HO/TATIANA SANCHEZ: "As restaurants in the Bay Area shut down their dining rooms in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic strain they faced surfaced many of the fissures in the industry that had previously existed without much comment. Among them is their reliance on undocumented workers: the people who grill arepas and hot dogs for commuters and churchgoers, who scrub kitchen tiles, who pick grapes and bus tables.
The restaurant business depends heavily on undocumented labor, and those workers — who are ineligible for unemployment benefits and federal stimulus checks and have difficulty getting health insurance and loans — have been hit the hardest by the pandemic.
While some will get relief as restaurants across the Bay Area reopen, many workers will still face significant economic hardships in the months to come as they catch up on rent and other bills that piled up when their paychecks stopped. Though some grants are available on a local and state level, there isn’t enough funding for all of the Bay Area’s estimated 580,500 undocumented immigrants. Community advocates fear this will push them further into poverty in a region known for its immense wealth and exorbitant housing costs."
READ MORE related to Economy: Uber to purchase Postmates for $2.65B -- The Chronicle's MIKE ISAAC/ERIN GRIFFITH; How the pandemic has ravaged SF's Fisherman's Wharf: 'You can't come up with something that's worse' -- The Chronicle's ANNA KRAMER; You can't do to-go business if no one comes. For Delta's day-trip towns, pandemic takes toll -- Sac Bee's EMILIANO TAHUI GOMEZ
Bay Area backyard cottages boom as elderly parents and college students flee coronavirus
The Chroniclke's J.K. DINEEN: "Bay Area companies that specialize in backyard cottages are seeing a surge in interest from homeowners who suddenly need to create additional living space for elderly parents or adult children displaced because of the coronavirus.
Some families are scrambling to move their parents out of assisted-living facilities, where the risks of contracting the coronavirus are high. Other erstwhile empty-nesters find themselves crowded as their young adult kids return from shuttered college campuses or look to escape small apartments in expensive cities like San Francisco or New York.
After California lawmakers embraced a series of statewide bills in 2017 to streamline building backyard cottages — also called accessory dwelling units or ADUs — the number of new units approved exploded to more than 7,000 in 2018, 50% higher than 2017. For many suburban residents, the backyard homes were seen as a more palatable answer to the housing crisis than large apartment buildings. But in a state that should build millions of homes to keep up with demand, critics said the cottages are a distraction from the need to build multiunit buildings at scale."
California's new budget unfairly hurts some of California's best-performing schools, advocates say
Sac Bee's MACKENZIE HAWKINS: "School funding in California has long adhered to the guiding principle that the money follows the student.
But under this year’s education budget, lawmakers and education advocates warn, the state will abandon its traditional allocation formula in favor of a system that harms the very schools — disproportionately, charter schools and personalized education programs — that have performed best under pandemic pressures.
California’s public schools usually receive money based on a combination of the prior year’s funding and the current year’s average daily attendance — a metric that reflects not the number of students enrolled, but rather how many students show up each day."
Hundreds of Fourth of July fires in Bay Area, many from illegal fireworks
The Chronicle's TATIANA SANCHEZ/RUSTY SIMMONS: "Fire officials across the Bay Area remained on high alert Sunday after battling hundreds of fires on the Fourth of July — almost all ignited by illegal fireworks — that threatened multiple homes and buildings and injured a father and his child.
Firefighters were spread so thin overnight, fielding dozens of calls in a single hour, that many dispatched only one fire engine to the scene of each blaze during the height of the rush. It was the culmination of nearly a month of illegal fireworks activity across the Bay Area, officials said.
The wild holiday weekend, amplified against a backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic and widespread civil unrest, included a 6-acre blaze in San Francisco’s Bayview district, where the fire was contained before it reached a series of motor homes. In the East Bay, a major fire burned in Oak Hills Park in Pittsburg, threatening homes nearby."
READ MORE related to Climate/Environment: Fast-moving wildfire east of Gilroy grows to more than 1,000 acres -- The Chronicle's ERIN ALLDAY
International AIDS Conference returns to SF, overshadowed by a new pandemic
The Chronicle's ERIN ALLDAY: "This week was to be a momentous occasion in Bay Area public health. The International AIDS Conference, the most important global gathering of AIDS scientists, doctors, activists and people living with HIV, was returning to San Francisco for the first time in 30 years.
But in the shadow of a new pandemic, the conference will be a virtual affair. More than 20,000 attendees had been expected to descend upon the Bay Area for the five-day event, which will now be held online only, with one day devoted entirely to COVID-19 news and research.
Bay Area HIV/AIDS leaders who spent two years organizing the event — many of whom had waited decades to bring it back to San Francisco — said they are disappointed but rallying."
Legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone dead at 91
LA Times's DAVID COLKER: "Oscar-winning film composer Ennio Morricone, who came to prominence with the Italian western “A Fistful of Dollars” and went on to write some of the most celebrated movie scores of all time, has died. He was 91.
Morricone’s longtime lawyer, Giorgio Assumma, told the Associated Press that the composer died early Monday in a Rome hospital of complications following a fall, in which he broke a leg.
A native of the Italian capital, Morricone composed music for more than 500 films and television shows in a career that spanned more than 50 years. At first he was closely associated with “A Fistful of Dollars” director Sergio Leone, for whom he scored six films, including “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “Once Upon a Time in America.” Established in his own right, Morricone turned out classic scores for films such as “Days of Heaven,” “Bugsy,” “Cinema Paradiso,” “The Untouchables,” “La Cage aux Folles” and “Battle of Algiers."
Trump's views -- bleak about the US, rosy about the coronavirus -- put Republicans on the spot
LA Times's LAURA KING: "White House surrogates and GOP lawmakers struggled Sunday to defend President Trump after he spent the Fourth of July holiday weekend denigrating the racial-justice movement galvanized by George Floyd’s killing and playing down a deadly pandemic by claiming that 99% of coronavirus cases are “completely harmless.”
In a pair of divisive speeches delivered against backdrops meant to invoke traditional images of patriotism and national pride — the massive presidential monument at Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota on Friday and a fireworks-and-flyover celebration in the nation’s capital the next day — Trump hewed to a message aimed at his hard-line base, with little in the way of outreach to the country as a whole.
Even some Trump strategists acknowledge it’s a risky gambit."
