COVID-19 hospitalizations rising in parts of California, a potentially ominous sign
LA Times, LUKE MONEY/RONG-GONG LIN II: "COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen significantly in the Inland Empire and Central Valley, bringing new concerns about whether the shift represents a precursor to a wider spike in COVID-19 in California as the winter holidays approach.
Across the state, both cases and hospitalizations hit a plateau after months of decline. Hospitalizations have remained fairly flat in some areas with relatively high vaccination rates, including the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County.
But in some areas with lower vaccination rates, such as Riverside, San Bernardino and Fresno counties, conditions are deteriorating, with hospitalizations up by more than 20% in recent weeks. And even some places with relatively high vaccination rates are seeing COVID-19 hospitalizations tick upward; in Orange County, COVID-19 hospitalizations are up by 16% since Halloween."
Mark Ridley-Thomas can't vote on LA's new redistricting map. That has some worried
LA Times, DAVID ZAHNISER: "A group of residents in Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas’s district blasted the city’s political leaders on Monday, saying they still do not have a voting representative just as a redistricting plan is coming up for a vote.
The group, which gathered outside Southern Missionary Baptist Church on West Adams Boulevard, said they need someone to advocate on their behalf when council members take up the redistricting plan, which is expected to establish the city’s political boundaries for the next decade.
Ridley-Thomas was suspended last month after being indicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges. The council is scheduled to cast its first vote on the proposed map on Tuesday, followed by two public hearings and another vote Dec. 1."
Thousands protest vaccine mandates as LA's verification rules kick in
LA Times, NATHAN SOLIS/HAILEY BRANSON-POTTS: "Thousands of people gathered outside Los Angeles City Hall to protest COVID-19 vaccination mandates on Monday — the day the city began enforcing some of the nation’s strictest vaccination verification rules for businesses.
L.A. now requires proof of full COVID-19 vaccination to enter indoor restaurants, shopping centers, movie theaters, hair and nail salons, gyms, museums, bowling alleys, performance venues and other spaces.
Attendees of outdoor events with 5,000 or more people also have to show proof of vaccination or that they have recently tested negative for the coronavirus. The city’s rules are stricter than those imposed by Los Angeles County."
'Finally, we are free.' An emotional homecoming for Sacramento students trapped in Afghanistan
Sacramento Bee, SAWSAN MORRAR/JASON POHL: "When Rahmatullah, Huma and their children arrived at Ethel I. Baker Elementary on Monday morning, the school’s announcement board had a message: “Welcome Back Pakiza, Raihan and Faizan!”
The three Sacramento City Unified children and their parents have returned home to Sacramento after months of uncertainty and scrambling across Afghanistan while coordinating with a principal half a world away. That journey culminated with a return to classes Monday.
“This is humanity,” Rahmatullah said. The children eagerly posed for a photograph in front of the sign. It was their first time on campus since February."
A LA attorney found a novel way to get Afghans into the US. Will it work?
LA Times, ANDREA CASTILLO: "As the Taliban stood poised to take control of Afghanistan’s capital city, Los Angeles attorney Wogai Mohmand watched, horrified, racking her brain for how to help her family and others escape.
She typed up a document outlining possible immigration pathways for Afghans seeking to come to the United States and posted it on social media. Hundreds of strangers replied, begging her for legal help.
Now Mohmand is spearheading an effort to convince the U.S. government to expand a fast-track for legal entry to the United States known as humanitarian parole to thousands of Afghans, even as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is struggling to process the applications it has already received."
As the world gets hotter, can cattle survive? A rancher's quest for drought-proof cows
LA Times, JAWEED KALEEM: "He calls them his “little project.”
Compared with humans, they’re not little at all. Some weigh 600 pounds. But for cattle, they’re tiny and immature — less than half the size of those usually slaughtered for beef.
Langdon Hill bought them at auction and gated them in his backyard, an acre covered in sudangrass hay and mesquite, jojoba and palo verde trees in the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness 70 miles northeast of Tucson."
Chart shows how much rain SF needs to 'normalize'
The Chronicle, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: "More rainfall is expected to shower the Bay Area this week — but nowhere near enough to get San Francisco back to normal levels.
Data compiled by Jan Null, meteorologist for Golden Gate Weather Service, summarized just how much rainfall the region would need to get close to what’s considered normal — and it’s still a copious amount, despite a wetter-than-expected start to the rainy season.
In a normal season, San Francisco should be receiving about 22.89 inches of rain. The city only saw 11.7 inches of rain during its 2019-20 season, followed by 8.97 inches of rain in its 2020-21 season.
Hannah Gutierrez Reed wasn't the only weapons expert working on 'Rust.' Who was the 'armor mentor'?
LA Times, STAFF: "Hannah Gutierrez Reed, 24, wasn’t the only weapons wrangler attached to the western film “Rust,” starring Alec Baldwin.
The film’s producers also had brought in a second gun expert: Seth Kenney, who owns a licensed Lake Havasu City, Ariz., weapons and props rental company. Kenney was added to the “Rust” crew in late September as an “armorer mentor” for Gutierrez Reed, according to an internal “Rust” crew list shared with the Los Angeles Times.
Kenney, 51, suggested Gutierrez Reed for the armorer job, according to a person close to the production who was not authorized to comment."
Recacll effort against SF DA Chesa Boudin attracts more than twice as much money as his supporters
The Chronicle, TRISHA THADANI/NANI SUMIDA: "The campaign to oust San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has raised more than twice as much as Boudin’s supporters, according to new financial disclosures that were filed shortly after recall organizers cleared a major hurdle to qualify for the ballot.
While money is not a perfect measure of how much support a campaign might ultimately receive at the ballot, it’s critical for getting the word out to voters. And, so far, there’s a lot of cash to go around: Those who want to unseat the district attorney have funneled $1.6 million into the recall, while his supporters have pitched in far less with $650,000, according to financial disclosures filed Friday.
People from across the country have been pouring money into the recall for months, long before the campaign collected enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
The cool SF office no longer matters for hiring. So what does?
The Chronicle, CHASE DIFELICIANTONIO: "Jason Alderman stood outside while on his phone in a Washington, D.C., park, his head shielded imperfectly by an umbrella as a rain shower was picking up on a dreary fall day. The communications chief at San Francisco tech company Fast was on the East Coast to interview a job candidate, a trip to track down talent that probably would not have happened before the pandemic altered how companies such as Fast find people to work for them and persuade them to stay.
It’s a new way of working for Alderman.
Before the company went fully remote early last year, candidates, mostly living in the Bay Area, would ascend to Fast’s airy, loftlike open office, often huddling with other engineers to get a look at the company’s code and products firsthand while being introduced to Fast and its people. That experience was central to persuading people to come aboard, so much so that company CEO Domm Holland changed out the sofa where applicants sat three or four times, just to make them comfortable."
SF could become 4th California city to apologize to Chinese community
The Chronicle, SHWANIKA NARAYAN: "Drew Min was at a Chinese restaurant last month when he got his chance to help San Francisco confront more than 150 years of wrong.
The UC Berkeley junior and two friends — Lowell High School senior Dennis Casey Wu and Stanford University sophomore George Tilton-Low — had been researching the city’s mistreatment of early Chinese immigrants since May, when Antioch became the first California city to apologize to its Chinese community for historic injustices. In the months since, San Jose and Los Angeles issued their own apologies.
But not San Francisco, which functioned as a quasi-laboratory for anti-Chinese laws in the 19th and 20th centuries."
Developer plans large housing complex on major Sacramento corridor full of vacant lots
Sacramento Bee, THERESA CLIFT: "A Los Angeles developer plans to build two apartment buildings on Stockton Boulevard near the new UC Davis Aggie Square development.
LW Gateway has submitted plans with the city to build two buildings on long-vacant lots along Stockton Boulevard between Ninth and 10th avenues.
The buildings would contain about 230 units, including about 10 affordable units for lower-income households, said Dan Weinstein, principal for LW Gateway. There will be a range of sizes offered, ranging from efficiencies to two-bedroom units, he said."
Could new plans announced for former Sleep Train Arena land help Elk Grove's zoo chances?
Sacramento Bee, DARRELL SMITH: "Elk Grove says it has the land and the demographics to provide a new home for the Sacramento Zoo.
Now development plans announced last week for a site once seen as a potential new home for the Land Park landmark could further tip the scales toward Elk Grove.
The proposed 183-acre Innovation Park development, a mix of higher density apartments, townhomes and single-family homes would join California Northstate University’s planned 14-story, 730,000 square-foot teaching hospital, trauma center and medical school on the site of the former Sleep Train Arena."
