Good morning. It’s Thursday, April 21.
• | Storm to deliver crucial late-season rain and snow. |
• | Santa Ana officials berate police for blaring Disney music. |
• | And a YouTuber is found to have orchestrated plane crash. |
Statewide
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“People are on that razor’s edge right now.”
Food banks across the state are reporting a surge of new faces as the highest inflation in 41 years pushes more Californians to the brink. A food bank in Santa Barbara said its numbers were up 30% since late last year. Another in Sacramento said it saw a 40% increase in the past month. Many people are showing up on foot to avoid wasting gas. L.A. Times
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Coyotes hunt for mice in the snow in the Eldorado National Forest on April 7.
George Rose/Getty Images
“We may not have had a miracle March, but April has been awesome!”
Meteorologists were uncharacteristically upbeat, despite the persisting drought, as a system of heavy rain and snow began a sweep across the state that was expected to last into Friday. Winter storm warnings were issued in the Sierra, where up to 4 feet of snow was predicted at higher elevations. The heaviest rain was forecast to fall in Northern and Central California before spreading south into Los Angeles. Accuweather
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Coronavirus roundup:
• | All holdout Bay Area transit agencies — including BART, Caltrain, and MUNI — made masks optional Wednesday, joining a nationwide cascade of loosening policies. But some weren’t happy about it. Several BART directors planned to push to reinstate a mandate. S.F. Chronicle | Mercury News |
• | Statewide Covid-19 hospitalizations dipped below an average of 1,000 this week for the first time since last summer. The decrease has happened even as case and test positivity rates have recently trended upward. Health experts credited high rates of immunity. S.F. Chronicle |
• | See coronavirus tracker. 👉 Covid19.ca.gov |
Northern California
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John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, where Ailee Jong died in surgery.
On Nov. 12, 2019, doctors at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek began surgery to remove a cancerous portion of a 2-year-old girl’s liver. Within 10 hours, little Ailee Jong was dead. It’s since been revealed that a former medical director, Dr. Alicia Kalamas, had warned hospital executives that the facility was ill-equipped to handle the procedure, saying it would be a “clean kill” if they went forward. They did anyway, she said, because they wanted to build their pediatric brand. S.F. Chronicle
5
Kenyon Graham was homeless, prone to violence, bouncing between jail and mental health programs. A group of residents in the neighborhood where he wandered resolved to help him, placing phone calls, collecting court records, and making statements to a judge. In an emergency meeting, they told officials Graham was a danger to himself and others. Six months later, he was beaten to death with a skateboard while asleep on the sidewalk. “After my initial sadness, it was soon replaced by anger,” said neighbor Ellen Kim, 53, fighting tears. Mercury News
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Bars and restaurants in the Bay Area are now providing fentanyl test strips as the region grapples with an epidemic of overdose deaths. Volunteers with the Oakland group FentCheck regularly replenishes stocks of the test strips at venues across Oakland, San Francisco, and beyond. “We’re done with dead kids,” said Alison Heller, a co-founder. “We’re done with accidental overdoses. We are also serving people who are struggling with drug addiction.” Reuters
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John Francis in 1986.
Glenn Oakley
On his 27th birthday in 1973, John Francis, a devoted environmentalist living in Inverness, was tired of arguing with people about the dangers of pollution. So he decided to be silent for a day. He liked it. One day became two, then a year. Francis didn’t talk again for 17 years. In that time, he walked with a banjo slung over his shoulder across the U.S. and South America. He painted. He worked toward a Ph.D. Then, coinciding with Earth Day on this week in 1990, he gathered his friends and family together and took a deep breath. “Well, I want to thank you for coming,” he said. There were applause and tears.
Years later, Francis tried to explain for an interviewer the hidden world that opened up to him. “Silence is not just not talking,” he said. “It’s a void. It’s a place where all things come from. All voices, all creation comes out of this silence. So when you’re standing on the edge of silence, you hear things you’ve never heard before, and you hear things in ways you’ve never heard them before. And what I would disagree with one time, I might now agree with in another way, with another understanding.”
Francis told his remarkable story in a 2008 TED talk.
Southern California
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Findings from a new poll of Los Angeles residents:
• | 81% think extreme heat poses a threat. |
• | 83% want officials to spend more money to add rail lines. |
• | 60% said more traffic lanes should be made bus-only. |
Yet when asked to identify the top issues they cared about in the mayoral race, Angelenos embraced other priorities. Just 10% chose climate change. Sixty-one percent picked homelessness, and 38% said crime and public safety. L.A. Times
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ASAP Rocky and Rihanna at Goya Studios in Los Angeles on Feb. 11.
Rich Fury/Getty Images for Fenty Beauty & Fenty Skin
The rapper ASAP Rocky was arrested at LAX on Wednesday after investigators determined that he shot a person during an altercation in Hollywood on Nov. 6, 2021. The victim suffered minor injuries, reports said. Law enforcement had been surveilling Rocky, 33, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, and tracked his return from Barbados, where he was vacationing with his girlfriend Rihanna, who is pregnant with their child. L.A. Times | Washington Post
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Dozens of children are being separated from relatives as Ukrainian refugees try to cross from Tijuana to San Diego. The separations are happening under a law designed to prevent children from being trafficked. But it’s come as an unexpected shock to Ukrainians fleeing a war zone. “Imagine — some of these children’s parents died or are fighting; they’re traumatized from the war and the journey,” an immigration lawyer said. “Then they get separated from family, without understanding why, and sent to a shelter where staff don’t speak their language.” N.Y. Times
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“Embarrassing.” “Chilling.” “A joke.”
Santa Ana’s City Council ripped the city’s police department on Wednesday after officers were captured on video blaring copyrighted Disney music from a squad car to prevent recordings of them from hitting YouTube. During the April 4 incident, which occurred late at night in a residential neighborhood, a City Council member who happened to live nearby approached the officers as they investigated a possible stolen vehicle. “Guys, what’s going on with the music?” he asked. The answer: “copyright infringement.” The video went viral anyway. Press-Enterprise | Voice of OC
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Trevor Jacob unleashed a flurry of expletives before jumping from a plane.
When a daredevil YouTuber named Trevor Jacob posted video of him leaping, selfie stick in hand, from a small aircraft with apparent engine trouble over the Los Padres National Forest, other pilots were immediately skeptical. The Nov. 24 crash drew the attention of the F.A.A., which issued a ruling this month: He did it on purpose. The agency noted, among other giveaways, that Jacob had opened the pilot door before claiming the engine failed. He was ordered to surrender his private pilot certificate. N.Y. Times (gift article)
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