This is what Paradise looks like five years after devastating Camp Fire
The Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "Aromas of cumin and garlic enveloped the small restaurant kitchen where Maria Garcia tossed sizzling beef in one skillet, chili verde in another.
Preparing for the lunch crowd in a town that was nearly wiped off the map by wildfire is a gamble, even five years later."
READ MORE -- Paradise recovery from deadly Camp Fire: How to build a fireproof town -- BANG*Mercury News, LISA M. KRIEGER
Eric Garcetti finally got his ambassadorship. But he’s not done yet
LA Times, COURTNEY SUBRAMANIAN: "Indian pop-fusion music blared from airport speakers as Eric Garcetti stood at the foot of Air Force One, waiting to greet his longtime ally and most important political patron, President Biden.
The former L.A. mayor, a bilingual Rhodes scholar and striving son of a famed district attorney, hadn’t planned to be here. As a key early endorser of Biden and the co-chair of his campaign, Garcetti had once seemed poised for a bright future in Washington, perhaps as a member of the new president’s Cabinet."
Why the next four months could make or break London Breed’s reelection hopes
The Chronicle, JOE GAROFOLI: "The next four months will go a long way toward determining whether London Breed will continue to be San Francisco’s mayor.
The clock starts ticking this week, when the APEC conference — an international gathering attracting President Biden, doom loop-curious international journalists and scores of protesters — puts San Francisco and all its ills and joys under the microscope."
Why the stakes of the APEC summit in San Francisco just got even higher (OP-ED)
The Chronicle, CHRISTOPHER TANG: "Established in 1989, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum brings together 21 member countries, including the United States, China, Russia, the Philippines, Chinese Taipei, Chile and Mexico, among others. The shared objective of all members is to enhance the region’s economic prosperity.
The 2023 APEC summit is scheduled for Nov. 11-17 in San Francisco. Its stated agenda is to explore strategies for fostering an interconnected, innovative and inclusive society. However, it’s worth noting that some APEC members are either directly engaged in conflicts with each other or hold divergent views on issues such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the escalating tensions between the United States and China."
Israeli voices questioning war are faint: ‘Some people are calling us traitors’
LA Times, LAURA KING: "In Jewish tradition, the passage of 30 days — known as sheloshim — is a significant interval in rituals of mourning. Now, a month after the massacre that nearly brought the country to its knees, Israel’s battered “peace camp” is rising — or trying its best to do so.
The Israeli military is engaged in what its army chief of staff calls face-to-face battles with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that slaughtered some 1,400 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. The human cost in the Gaza Strip has been immense, standing at the threshold of 10,000 people killed, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, mainly in Israel’s nearly nonstop bombardment of the narrow coastal enclave."
Trump’s decades of testimony provide some clues about how he’ll fight for his real estate empire
AP: "Donald Trump has testified in court as a football owner, casino builder and airline buyer. He bragged in a deposition that he saved “millions of lives” by deterring nuclear war as president. Another time, he fretted about the dangers of flung fruit.
Conditioned by decades of trials and legal disputes, Trump is now poised to reprise his role as witness under extraordinary circumstances: as a former Republican president fighting to save the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House."
Ancient California tree may be threatened by proposed Riverside County development
LA Times, LOUIS SAHAGUN: "It started life near the end of the last Ice Age, nestled between two boulders on a rise in the Jurupa Hills of Riverside County — a shrubby oak tree estimated to be 13,000 years old, making it one of the oldest living organisms on Earth.
Devoid of other members of its species – Quercus palmeri or Palmer’s oak — to pollinate it, it is infertile and grows clonally, with new shoots and root systems that tap rainwater collected in cracks in the rocks beneath the surface."
Yosemite got cleaned up. This is what was found amid 10,000 pounds of trash
The Chronicle, GREGORY THOMAS: "For the second year in a row, Yosemite National Park lovers have gained a view into the kinds of stray litter that winds up among the trails, trees and riverbanks in Yosemite Valley.
Marlboro and Camel cigarette butts, Starbucks cups, Clif bar wrappers, plastic water bottles, cleaning wipes, hair bands, sales receipts and unidentifiable microplastic fragments were among the most common items sampled randomly from thousands of pounds of garbage retrieved during a large volunteer-driven trash cleanup in the park in late September."
Light rain has begun in the Bay Area and will last through Monday
BANG*Mercury News, MARTHA ROSS: "The National Weather Service reported that light rain had begun falling in the North Bay Sunday morning, with chances of rain spreading throughout the Bay Area in the afternoon and evening and continuing through Monday.
The rain is due to a pair of cold fronts that are moving into the Bay Area, which will lead to clear skies and cold mornings in the middle of the week and the possibility of rain returning by the end of the week, forecasters also said."
Nonprofit offers high schoolers in foster care guidance on getting to college
EdSource, AYA MIKBEL: "First Star Academy, a college-preparation program launched at UCLA in 2011, has been working to help foster youth students graduate from high school and reach levels of higher education.
Foster youth have the worst reported education outcomes in the nation as they lack school stability. According to the California Department of Education, only about 60% of foster youth in California complete high school, compared with 85% less than their non-foster counterparts. In addition, no more than 15% of California’s foster youth are considered college-ready, compared with 44% statewide."
Disneyland workers primed for big salary bump after winning living-wage legal battle
LA Times, GABRIEL SAN ROMAN: "Marlene Hackett works most days in Disneyland at food stands in Critter Country, where she rolls the theme park’s famed churros in brown sugar and shovels buttery popcorn into buckets before handing them out to eager parkgoers.
But with an hourly wage of $21.25 after 13 years as a Disney “cast member,” Hackett, 53, struggles to keep her own cupboards full. So, shortly after dawn on a recent Friday, she was among scores of theme park workers picking up boxes filled with canned goods, pasta, bread and tortillas at a monthly food bank hosted by Workers United Local 50, Disney’s largest labor union."
SAG-AFTRA reviewing what studios say is their ‘last, best and final offer’ to end strike
LA Times, CHRISTI CARRAS, MEG JAMES: "SAG-AFTRA is taking time to review what the alliance representing the major Hollywood studios described as its “last, best and final offer” to end the actors’ strike, the performers union announced this weekend.
In a public statement, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists informed members on Saturday that its negotiating committee was going over the latest proposal from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers."
Judge to San Jose church: Turkey bags of weed, piles of stashed cash not ‘sacrament’
BANG*Mercury News, ETHAN BARON: "A San Jose church this week lost a lengthy legal battle after claiming police violated its religious rights by raiding its minister’s home and seizing 90 pounds of marijuana, nearly 1,200 cannabis vaping cartridges and more than $155,000.
Judge Phyllis Hamilton ruled Tuesday in federal court in Oakland that the Sacrament Collective Pentecostal Church, despite its foundational belief in cannabis as a holy sacrament, was still subject to state drugs laws. Hamilton threw out the lawsuit the church filed against Santa Cruz County a month after the 2019 search of the minister’s house in the Santa Cruz Mountains."
