LAUSD school board chooses new chief, longtime Florida superintendent Alberto Carvalho
LINH TAT, LA Daily News: “Carvalho, who speaks Spanish fluently, said during a news conference in Florida on Thursday that while leaving Miami-Dade will be difficult, he felt a calling to come to L.A. Unified, which shares many of the same issues and challenges as Miami-Dade, as both are large, urban districts.
Those issues, he said, includes historical achievement gaps, unprecedented learning losses wrought by the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately impacted students of color, low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities.
“At some point, there’s a calling for you to go and do what you’ve done here to continue to help others. And that’s the call that I’m heeding.”
READ MORE on Carvahlo: Who is Alberto Carvalho, LAUSD’s new superintendent? -- HOWARD BLUME and MELISSA GOMEZ, LA Times.
Felony counts in Caldor Fire case include allegation involving machine gun
SAM STANTON, SacBee: “El Dorado County prosecutors filed felony charges Thursday against the father and son accused of starting the devastating Caldor Fire, including counts charging the son with converting a firearm into a machine gun and possessing a silencer.
Travis Shane Smith, 32, and his father, David Scott Smith, 66, were arrested Wednesday and booked into the El Dorado County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail each.
The pair are scheduled to make their first court appearance Friday via a video hookup from the jail. Sources have told The Sacramento Bee investigators were looking into whether the fire may have been sparked during target practice on Aug. 14, the day the blaze erupted near Grizzly Flat, and one source has said they were driving through the Northern California forest area in a dune buggy.”
Father and son deny starting Caldor Fire. They were just ‘enjoying the forest,’ their lawyer says
The Chronicle, KURTIS ALEXANDER/RACHEL SWAN: "Investigators probing the cause of this past summer’s massive Caldor Fire near Lake Tahoe began focusing their attention on father and son David and Travis “Shane” Smith as soon as a few days after the blaze began.
The two men, arrested this week and charged with arson, were spending a warm August afternoon on a remote edge of the Eldorado National Forest north of Highway 88 above the Cosumnes River when the fast-spreading fire broke out in the area.
Their attorney told The Chronicle on Thursday that the two were simply “enjoying the forest like everyone else does” and had nothing to do with the ignition. The men saw the flames and called 911, their attorney said. David Smith, 66, whose 32-year-old son was visiting from Folsom, lives about 10 miles away in Somerset, a rural part of El Dorado County."
Charts show current COVID trajectories vs. past surges in California and the Bay Area
The Chronicle, KELLIE HWANG: "This time last year, the worst COVID surge of the pandemic was in full force in the Bay Area and California, with cases rising sharply each day. This summer, Californians saw another wave of cases as the delta variant tore through the country.
Now, coronavirus case rates have risen 37% in the Bay Area and 30% statewide just in the past week, according to data analysis by The Chronicle. Though they are still less than one-third of their levels one year ago, the highly mutated omicron variant is raising concerns worldwide — and while only a handful of omicron cases have surfaced in the state, experts say more are sure to follow soon.
So what can the two previous coronavirus curves tell us about whether we will see another surge? And if we do, what will it look like?"
Young Latinos are dying of COVID at an alarming rate — the effects could be felt for generations
LA Times, ALEJANDRA REYES-VELARDE: "Every morning, Sergio Ayala combed his daughters’ hair into twin braids, dropped them off at school and headed to work.
He loved his job as a field supervisor at his brother-in-law’s pest control company. But he wanted to own a business and was studying to become a barber. He hoped to start a college savings fund for his three girls and toddler son.
In January, that dream was cut short. His family believes he contracted the coronavirus while practicing his barbering skills in people’s homes."
These charts show how the geography of California’s booster shots differs from early vaccinations
The Chronicle, SUSIE NEILSON: "Nearly one in five Californians has received a vaccine booster shot so far. That’s about the same number of residents that had gotten initially vaccinated by early March 2021. But the initial booster shots have been going to a different group of Californians than the earliest vaccine doses.
The Chronicle looked at what counties have the most boosted residents relative to their overall population as of Dec. 5, the most recent date with complete data. At that time, 6.7 million Californians had gotten boosters. We then looked at those counties’ vaccination rates on March 1, when 6.7 million Californians had gotten initial doses of the vaccine.
The data shows that the counties that had high vaccination rates early on in the pandemic differ markedly from those with high rates of booster shots now. Most significantly, counties with older populations tended to have higher vaccination rates in March than booster rates in December, while most Bay Area counties have higher booster rates now than they had vaccination rates in March."
How Two Governors in a Bathroom Changed California’s Capitol
SHAWN HUBLER, NY Times: "California’s big, domed, white Capitol is a grand and inspiring building. But California’s governor’s office? How to say this delicately? “Rinky-dink.”
That’s how Arnold Schwarzenegger put it this week as he remembered the grand tour the departing governor, Gray Davis, gave him shortly after Schwarzenegger won the 2003 election in which Davis was recalled.
The cramped quarters. The drab décor. The way you could walk right past the entrance — in a bland, six-story space completed in 1952 — and not even know its occupant was the leader of one of the world’s largest economies."
Capitol Weekly Podcast: Campaign Keepsakes
Capitol Weekly, STAFF: "As the American Political Items Collectors prepare to host their annual show this weekend in Sacramento we asked Adam Gottlieb to talk with us about his passion for collecting buttons and other rare campaign items. The APIC show runs from 10 AM to 2 PM, Saturday, December 11, in Curtis Hall at the Sierra 2 Center, 2791 24th Street, Sacramento – click HERE for tickets. Plus: the Return of #WorstWeekCA!"
U.S. consumer prices rise 6.8% in past year, most since 1982
LA Times, MARTIN CRUTSINGER: "Prices for U.S. consumers jumped 6.8% in November compared with a year earlier as surging costs for food, energy, housing and other items left Americans enduring their highest annual inflation rate since 1982.
The Labor Department also reported Friday that from October to November, prices jumped 0.8%.
Inflation has been intensifying pressure on consumers, especially lower-income households and particularly for everyday necessities. It has also negated the higher wages many workers have received, complicated the Federal Reserve’s plans to reduce its aid for the economy and coincided with flagging public support for President Biden."
More Dungeness crab is on the horizon, as California permits commercial fishing on the Central Coast
The Chronicle, TARA DUGGAN: "Bay Area families who plan holiday menus around Dungeness crab got welcome news Thursday when the state announced it would open more of the Central Coast to crab fishing this month.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Thursday that commercial fishing can begin on Dec. 16 on the coast between Pigeon Point and Lopez Point in Big Sur, with some restrictions. However, commercial fishing will remain closed in the region around San Francisco — from Pigeon Point to the Sonoma-Mendocino county line — to protect whales that have been observed in the region.
The beginning of the commercial crab season in those two regions, which usually starts Nov. 15, was delayed this year to protect endangered whales and leatherback sea turtles from getting caught in fishing gear, in line with state rules set up to protect the endangered species."
The Geminid meteor shower peaks Monday. Here’s how to get the best view in the Bay Area
The Chronicle, GWENDOLYN WU: "The year’s strongest meteor shower will put on its most spectacular show early Monday in the Bay Area — though cloudy weather and a bright moon may get in the way of seeing it.
The Geminids, which peak annually in December, return to Northern Hemisphere skies this month. They can be seen from now until Christmas, and are visible starting shortly after sunset through the early morning hours in the Bay Area, peaking around 1 a.m. Monday.
You don’t have to drive up a windy mountain road to spot the Geminids, said Paul Lynam, an astronomer at UC Santa Cruz’s Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton near San Jose."
Column: Leaked SoCal hospital records reveal huge, automated markups for healthcare
LA Times, DAVID LAZARUS: "Ridiculous, seemingly arbitrary price markups are a defining characteristic of the $4-trillion U.S. healthcare system — and a key reason Americans pay more for treatment than anyone else in the world.
But to see price hikes of as much as 675% being imposed in real time, automatically, by a hospital’s computer system still takes your breath away.
I got to view this for myself after a former operating-room nurse at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas shared with me screenshots of the facility’s electronic health record system."
