Black Friday arrives as coronavirus surges. Here are your holiday shopping options
Sac Bee's TONY BIZJAK: "Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, is here. But COVID-19 infections are surging and unemployment insurance for many families is waning. It adds up to the most confusing and uncertain holiday shopping season anyone has experienced.
What will shoppers do?
With infections spiking, health officials say they prefer people stay home and treat Black Friday more like Cyber Monday by shopping online. That way the public isn’t hit with a double whammy of increased infections at Thanksgiving family gatherings followed by wider spread on Friday as people who don’t know they are infected rub elbows with others in stores."
READ MORE related to Economy/Reopening: Retail workers, low-wage heroes of the pandemic, brace for Black Friday crowds during COVID-19 surge -- Sac Bee's JEONG PARK/ALEXANDRA YOON-HENDRICKS; US agency investigating Tesla front suspension failures -- AP
Retail workers fear for their safety this Black Friday: ‘An anxiety attack waiting to happen’
SUHAUNA HUSSAIN, LATimes: "Black Friday leaves Andrea Hernandez breathless.
She’s worked the day after Thanksgiving at a mall shoe store in Los Angeles the last three years, spending her shift running back and forth, hauling sneakers from the stockroom to the waiting feet of customers — and trying to keep her cool when someone inevitably yells at her for disappearing too long.
For retail workers, Black Friday is, as Hernandez puts it, the “most dreaded day of the year.” But this year, the day they hate has also become one they fear."
California's unemployment fraud considered a reality-check on Newsom's political ambitions
Sac Bee's SOPHIA BOLLAG: "An unemployment fraud scheme that duped state government into paying tens of millions of dollars to criminals could become the biggest scam against taxpayers in California history.
It’s also the most recent bad news during a particularly damaging month for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.
First a judge ruled that Newsom abused his power with some pandemic executive orders. Another gave his critics more time to collect signatures for a recall. Then came revelations Newsom attended a birthday party at an exclusive restaurant against his administration’s own public health guidance. Last week, spiking COVID-19 rates prompted him to set a nightly curfew, sparking protests."
Are California prison guards covering up misconduct? Lawmaker wants an investigation
Sac Bee's WES VENTEICHER: "The chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee has Retail workers fear for their safety this Black Friday: ‘An anxiety attack waiting to happen’requested a broad investigation into whether California prison guards are covering up misconduct.
On Friday, two former California State Prison-Sacramento prison guards were charged with falsifying records to change details of an inmate’s death in 2016.
Court records say Arturo Pacheco, 38, and Ashley Marie Aurich, 31, were escorting a handcuffed 65-year-old inmate within the prison when Pacheco bent down and yanked the inmate’s legs backward out from under him. The inmate died two days later."
Newly elected SF supes, both immigrant women, add jolt of diversity to board
The Chronicle's TRISHA THADANI: "Two immigrant women will join the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January, additions that will add a jolt of diversity to the city’s most powerful political body.
Connie Chan was born in Hong Kong and moved to San Francisco when she was 13, while Myrna Melgar lived in El Salvador until she was 12, when her family fled from the civil war. Both women are from communities that are underrepresented in Bay Area politics. But they are also part of a growing trend of women of color running for — and winning — office.
Chan will represent District One, an area that includes the Richmond. Melgar will take over District Seven, which includes the Inner Sunset, Parkmerced, Parkside, Lakeside and Forest Hill."
Cal and Stanford's rivalry in a pandemic feels like anything but a Big Game week
The Chronicle's RUSTY SIMMONS: "No wins for either team. No fans on either side of the stadium. None of the typical pageantry.
A Cal and Stanford rivalry steeped in tradition, history and pomp and circumstance, might not feel anything like a Big Game when the football teams meet at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley for the 123rd iteration of the series.
The coronavirus has forced many of the game’s weeklong traditions to be adapted into virtual versions, like Cal’s pregame rally and Stanford’s Big Game countdown, or be abandoned altogether."
After Trump admin yanked approval, Sacramento homeless shelter will move forward
Sac Bee's THERESA CLIFT: "Six months after the Trump Administration blocked Sacramento officials from opening a large homeless shelter under the W-X freeway, Caltrans is allowing the project to move forward anyway.
Caltrans earlier this month signed a lease agreement with Sacramento, allowing the city to move forward with the project on a vacant lot near X Street and Alhambra Boulevard — a key component of the city’s homeless response strategy.
It’s unclear if Joe Biden winning the presidential election played a role in the project’s revival. The Caltrans lease agreement is dated Nov. 17 — about 10 days after media outlets declared Biden had defeated President Donald Trump."
With all of December to come, SF has already topped 2019 homicide numbers
The Chronicle's BOB EGELKO: "As homicides rise throughout the Bay Area during the coronavirus outbreak, San Francisco police have reported 45 killings this year, compared with 41 for all of 2019. Black people, who make up less than 6% of the city’s population, accounted for nearly half the victims.
The 41 slayings reported in 2019 were San Francisco’s lowest total in 56 years. Police reported four homicides in January and February this year, but the numbers began to rise as the pandemic set in, even as most other crimes were declining. As residents grow more fearful, gun sales are also increasing and have reached record levels nationwide.
Homicides in the Bay Area’s 15 largest cities increased by 14% in the first six months of 2020 compared with 2019, The Chronicle has reported. In Oakland, with a population of 435,000 compared with San Francisco’s 896,000, killings totaled 79 as of mid-October, a 36% increase over 2019."
