Newsom’s COVID-19 briefings often leave more questions than answers, some officials say
LA Times' PHIL WILLON: "In his last news briefing of 2020, one of more than 100 held since the COVID-19 pandemic exploded in March, Gov. Gavin Newsom looked seriously into the camera and assured Californians that public schools could reopen as soon as February.
The pressure to return to in-classroom learning had been intensifying for months, and Newsom’s “California Safe School for All” plan was an attempt to temper growing discontent.
It didn’t work. Superintendents in seven of California’s largest school districts said Newsom failed to address the needs of big-city schoolchildren and called his policy “confused.” The state’s largest teachers’ union said it left “many unanswered questions.” The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office, which evaluates proposals for state lawmakers, said the governor’s proposal was “likely unfeasible.”
Fight to make Big Oil pay for climate change heads to SCOTUS
The Chronicle's KURTIS ALEXANDER: "Baltimore may be a continent away from San Francisco, but the coastal cities have at least one thing in common: rising seas.
Both are seeing more flooding, more shoreline erosion and more battered infrastructure, and both want the oil industry to pay for the damage. They blame fossil fuels for the global warming that’s causing sea level rise.
On Tuesday, Baltimore will lead the campaign to recoup billions of dollars from oil companies in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The city’s legal strategy is one that dawned in the Bay Area four years ago, when San Francisco and neighboring communities began filing lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry. The California tactics have since been embraced by nearly two dozen cities, counties and states nationwide, all of which could be affected by the high court’s pending action."
California lawmakers face threats as national tensions grow
Sac Bee's LARA KORTE/HANNAH WILEY: "State lawmakers attended what was supposed to be a routine Capitol budget hearing last week assessing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spending plans for next year. But when the time came for public comment, things took a dark turn.
“If you want to vaccinate everyone in California, you guys are not thinking,” one speaker, who did not identify herself, said. “And there’s one more note: 17 million guns were purchased in the United States ... what do you think they’re going to do with that?”
The following speaker, who also did not identify herself, made the message clear:"
California braces for troubling new variant as US nears 400K dead
The Chronicle's AIDIN VAZIRI: "As the United States approached an unfathomable 400,000 deaths from COVID-19 and passed 24 million total cases on Monday, infectious disease experts warned that a new variant found in California could make an already crushing surge even worse.
California was nearing 3 million total cases on Monday, which would make it the first state to reach that sober benchmark. Though there are signs that cases and hospitalizations are leveling off across the state, the virus remains widespread in the state with more than 40,000 new cases reported daily.
With so much virus still circulating, Bay Area public health experts braced for the potentially devastating impact of the new variant, labeled L452R, along with several others identified in California and around the world. At least one new variant already is known to be more infectious, and the L452R variant may be too."
Use of some Moderna vaccines paused in California after reports of allergic reactions
Sac Bee's BENJY EGEL: "The California Department of Public Health is telling COVID-19 vaccine distributors to stop administering one specific batch.
Less than 10 people required medical attention within 24 hours of receiving vaccines from Moderna lot 41L20A at a California clinic, according to a CDPH media release distributed Monday. Each person suffered possibly severe allergic reactions, defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as those that require an Epi-Pen or hospitalization and otherwise known as anaphylaxis.
More than 330,000 doses from Lot 41L20A were distributed across 287 California vaccination sites between Jan. 5 and 12, with no other reported major incidents. Sacramento County does not have any doses from the lot, according to the county health department."
How these California mothers are making it through the pandemic
Sac Bee's KIM BOJORQUEZ: "Silvia Alvarenga of Sacramento has felt constant stress over her family’s finances since her business saw sharp declines in real estate clients during the pandemic.
She worries. How she will pay for her teenage daughter’s college textbooks? Who will drive her 86-year-old mother living at home to the store or next doctor’s appointment? When is the next utility bill due?
Nearly ten months into the pandemic, revenue continues to decline at her real estate brokerage. If the business doesn’t pick up soon, she fears giving up her Sacramento office space to work from home and save money."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: Pandemic fueling sharp rise in eating disorders, Bay Area experts say -- The Chronicle's ANNIE VAINSHTEIN; We asked Sacramento moms how you can help them in the pandemic. Here's what they said -- Sac Bee's KIM BOJORQUEZ
Here's how to watch the Biden/Harris inauguration
Sac Bee's BAILEY ALDRIDGE: "President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will take office Wednesday, and there are a number of ways to watch the inauguration from home.
The inauguration will look different this year due to the worsening coronavirus pandemic. Tickets will be limited to members of the 117th Congress and one guest each, or roughly 1,000 people compared to the usual 200,000 tickets lawmakers distribute to their constituents.
Festivities surrounding the inauguration will also look different, with a televised “Celebrating America” event planned instead of some traditional, in-person events."
READ MORE related to POTUS46 - Inauguration Day: Kamala Harris' inauguration offers counterpoint to insurection -- The Chronicle's TAL KOPAN
Fived ways Trump changed California -- including one that helped Democrats
The Chronicle's JOE GAROFOLI: "Donald Trump leaves office having changed a state that may have fought him harder than any other over the past four years, California.
His immigration policies sharply restricted migration to the state and made it harder for Silicon Valley to bring in foreign talent. His rollback of environmental safeguards stalled efforts to fight climate change that threatens coastal cities. His presence rearranged the political scene, leading to California supplying the first woman elected on a presidential ticket and the first Latino to represent the state in the U.S. Senate being named to replace her.
And there’s one way Trump outright helped California, albeit unintentionally."
'Slum' charges fly in fracas over affordable housing in SF's Sunset District
The Chronicle's JK DINEEN: "In early January, anonymous attack posters were slipped into mailboxes and left on doorsteps in San Francisco’s Sunset District.
The poster read, “No Slums In The Sunset.” It informed residents that a “7-story, 100-unit high-rise slum” was planned for the neighborhood and predicted that within two years the property in question — at 26th Avenue and Irving Street — would “become the best place in San Francisco to buy heroin.”
The incendiary fliers, which also referred to project proponent District Four Supervisor Gordon Mar as a “CCP member” — for Chinese Communist Party — marked the opening salvo in a new west side development war. It’s a dispute that’s likely to escalate as city housing officials push to build both market-rate and affordable housing in neighborhoods that have been almost completely left out of the construction boom of the last decade."
