No injuries have been reported, but residences and businesses along the Highway 87 corridor have reported shattered windows and some structural damage. The District Attorney’s Crime Lab has been struck eight times, the DA’s office said.

SAP Center and the San Jose Museum of Art also are among the buildings damaged. One woman had the windows in her car blown out, officials said.

“We are asking for the public’s help to stop this destructive and dangerous spree,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “This is not just property damage. People live and work behind those windows.”

There have been at least 20 incidences in 2021, and investigators believe the ball bearings are being launched by a slingshot at speeds that could cause a person severe injuries or even death, the DA’s office said.

Anyone with information about the crime can submit an anonymous tip using Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers P3TIPS mobile app, by calling the tip line at 408-947-STOP, or online at www.svcrimestoppers.org.

California spent $3.4 billion on wildfire protection last year, more than quadruple the level 15 years ago. But state officials have spent most of that money on extinguishing fires, a job that has become harder as the fires have gotten bigger and hotter because of climate change.

Thursday’s action brings California’s total wildfire prevention budget this year to more than $1.5 billion. It’s the final piece of the state’s record-setting $262.5 billion operating budget, a spending plan augmented by soaring state revenues from a rising stock market and unprecedented federal assistance because of the pandemic.

About 16,000 fires have burned in California since the start of 2020, scorching more than 10,000 square miles (25,899 square kilometers). That’s about 6.5% of California’s land. Nine states are smaller than that.

Six of the seven largest fires in state history have occurred since August 2020. This year, for the first time, two wildfires crested the summit of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said. One of those fires forced the first complete evacuation of the city of South Lake Tahoe, shuttering the major tourist attraction.

The fires are so intense they are even threatening 3,000-year-old Sequoia trees that are largely resistant to fires. In Sequoia National Park, officials had to wrap the base of the General Sherman — the world’s largest tree by volume — in fire-resistant material to save it from an encroaching wildfire.

“You can’t rebuild a giant Sequoia in a few years and have a groundbreaking. I mean, you can replant it and come back in 3,000 years to enjoy,” Newsom said. “That’s why we’re here with a deep sense of urgency, appreciation, humility, as human beings.”

Scientists have long warned that the weather will get wilder as the world warms. Climate change has made the West hotter and drier in the past 30 years.

Earlier this year, lawmakers approved $500 million in emergency spending for wildfire prevention, an unusual move prompted by a severe drought that has dried the state’s forests, leaving them more vulnerable to wildfires.

This month, largely because of a record-breaking budget surplus, lawmakers added nearly $1 billion in new spending to that total — money that Newsom approved Thursday.

Most of it will pay for things like clearing brush and dead trees that act as kindling when fires start, causing them to quickly burn out of control before firefighters can contain them.

There’s money to hire inspectors to make sure newer homes built in the state’s wildfire-prone areas comply with building codes requiring fire-resistant materials. And there’s money for the state to intentionally set fires when conditions are right to burn away fuel that would otherwise help larger fires burn during the dry season.

The funding is part of a $15 billion spending package on climate, which Newsom called the largest commitment in the state’s history. The spending includes money approved earlier this year and commitments to spend more in the future.

Also on Thursday, Newsom approved $1.2 billion for things like water recycling projects, cleaning up contaminated water sources and grants to help communities pan for climate change.

Republicans have criticized the spending because it does not include money for water storage projects, like building new reservoirs. California voters approved about $2.7 billion in 2014 for water storage projects. But so far, none of those have been built.

And some environmental groups bemoaned the budget for not doing more to wean the state off its dependence on fossil fuels.

“Fifteen billion dollars is a lot of money, but if the governor really wants to future-proof California as he said, then he must know that throwing money at the problem while continuing to approve new fossil fuel permits that are driving the climate chaos, is nonsensical,” said Amy Moas, a senior climate campaigner affiliated with Greenpeace USA. “It is like trying to mop up an overflowing bathtub without first turning off the faucet.”

California has more than 60,000 active oil wells, but permits for all types of oil drilling have declined considerably this year. The Newsom administration denied 21 fracking permits in July, a process used to extract oil and gas from deep underground.

In April, Newsom signed an executive order aimed at banning all oil extraction in California by 2045.

The San Francisco Chronicle citing NBA sources reports there is “increasing concern among the Warriors” about Wiggins’ availability during the season due to local COVID health requirements surrounding arenas and so-called mega events.

San Francisco and New York are currently the only cities with an NBA team requiring full vaccination for indoor events like a Warriors game at the Chase Center.

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NBC Sports Bay Area’s Monte Poole recently broke down why the Warriors could have a home-court disadvantage this season and discussed the Wiggins situation:

If Wiggins can’t show proof of vaccination by Oct. 13, he won’t be allowed in the building and will miss a game check with a pre-tax value of roughly $360,000.

If Paul George does not have proof of vaccination when the Los Angeles Clippers visit Chase Center for Opening Night on Oct. 21, he will be allowed to play — under three conditions.

Read more of Poole’s column.

• Check the air quality in your neighborhood

Smoke from fires in Southern and Central California is expected to reach the Bay Area, causing hazy skies but not necessarily unhealthy air. The pollution level likely won’t exceed federal standards that typically prompts a Spare the Air alert, the air district said.

If they smell of smoke, Bay Area residents should avoid exposure, officials said. Stay inside with windows and doors shut, if temperatures allow. Also, set air conditioning units and car vent systems to recirculate.

Check here for air quality readings at baaqmd.gov/highs.

The city first made most of JFK Drive between Transverse and Kezar drives carless back at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure space for social distancing for people walking, jogging and cycling.

Since then, the car-free route has become wildly popular, with San Francisco Recreation and Park officials seeing a 36 percent increase in recreational use along the street compared to pre-pandemic numbers. Additionally, the car-free initiative also brought serious injury collisions along the street to zero — compared to more than 50 such collision over the previous five years.

Due its success and in an effort to better serve residents, officials with Rec and Park, as well as the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, are now looking for ways to improve the route.

Through the agencies’ joint Golden Gate Park Access and Safety Program, residents will be able to provide feedback through an online open house, scheduled online office hours, virtual open-houses, pop-up information centers, and in-park tours.

Specifically, the program asks residents about options for JFK Drive and other park streets, including making the current closures permanent; reverting back to pre-pandemic configuration; or providing managed vehicle access to the park with limited vehicle access on JKF between Eighth Avenue and Tansverse Drive for westbound traffic only.

Additionally, proposed new services at the park to increase usability and access include, among others, establishing American Disabilities Act-accessible parking spaces; establishing taxi stands at the Music Concourse; creating a drop-off zone inside the Concourse garage; upgrading existing park shuttle service; expanding bikeshare and scootershare services at the park; allowing pedicab service; and modifying intersections to improve safety and traffic congestion.

“Public feedback is critical to determining the post-pandemic future of JFK Drive and we are eager to hear your thoughts and experiences,” San Francisco Recreation and Park Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg said in a statement. “Golden Gate Park belongs to everyone, so neither safety nor access can be an afterthought.”

“Golden Gate Park’s car-free route was designed to create safe recreational space during COVID. It turned out to be a major attractor, bringing more people to the park, serving commuters between the Sunset and downtown, and creating safe space for kids to learn to ride,” said SFMTA Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin.

To find out about virtual information sessions, upcoming park tours and in-person events, visit www.sfmta.com/accessggp or www.sfrecpark.accessggp. Additionally, the virtual open house, which runs through November 25, can be found here.

California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the state is considering the requirement during a Thursday morning media briefing.

The update from Ghaly comes after several school districts, including Oakland Unified and Los Angeles Unified, announced a similar mandate for students.

“We’re watching the experience in Los Angeles, understanding what it means for students and families alike, staff as well, and watching as other counties consider the same,” Ghaly said. “So, that conversation is happening certainly as part of what we’re considering at the state, but no definitive action or decision is being made at the moment.”

Ghaly said there is a “long tradition” in California and many other states, if not every state, of having student vaccination requirements.

“This is not something that is a new part of a conversation,” he said. “There’s been a long conversation about vaccines in schools and their role in protecting students. We, of course, are always looking at the data, understanding where there are opportunities to ensure that California’s vulnerable, those who can be protected, are protected through getting vaccinations.”

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Now that schools have welcomed students back to classrooms, they face a new challenge: a shortage of teachers and staff the likes of which some districts say they have never seen.

Public schools have struggled for years with teacher shortages, particularly in math, science, special education and languages. But the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the problem. The stress of teaching in the COVID-19 era has triggered a spike in retirements and resignations. Schools also need to hire staffers like tutors and special aides to make up for learning losses and more teachers to run online school for those not ready to return.

Teacher shortages and difficulties filling openings have been reported in Tennessee, New Jersey and South Dakota, where one district started the school year with 120 teacher vacancies. Across Texas, the main districts in Houston, Waco and elsewhere reported hundreds of teaching vacancies at the start of the year.

Several schools nationwide have had to shut classrooms because of a lack of teachers.

In Michigan, Eastpointe Community Schools abruptly moved its middle school back to remote learning this week because it doesn’t have enough teachers. The small district north of Detroit has 43 positions vacant — a quarter of its teaching staff. When several middle school teachers resigned without notice last week, the district shifted to online classes to avoid sending in unqualified substitutes, spokeswoman Caitlyn Kienitz said.

“You don’t want just an adult who can pass a background check, you want a teacher in front of your kids,” Kienitz said. “This is obviously not ideal, but we’re able to make sure they’re getting each subject area from a teacher certified to teach it.”

According to a June survey of 2,690 members of the National Education Association, 32% said the pandemic drove them to plan to leave the profession earlier than expected. Another survey by the RAND Corp. said the pandemic exacerbated attrition, burnout and stress on teachers, who were almost twice as likely as other employed adults to feel frequent job-related stress and almost three times more likely to experience depression.

The lack of teachers is “really a nationwide issue and definitely a statewide issue,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, president of California’s State Board of Education.

A school district in California’s West Contra Costa County is considering hiring out-of-state math educators to teach online while a substitute monitors students in person.

“This is the most acute shortage of labor we have ever had,” associate superintendent Tony Wold said. “We opened this year with 50 — that’s five-zero — teaching positions open. That means students are going to 50 classrooms that do not have a permanent teacher.”

There are an additional 100 openings for non-credentialed but critical staff like instructional aides — who help English learners and special needs students — custodians, cafeteria workers and others, Wold said.

California’s largest district, Los Angeles Unified with 600,000 students, has more than 500 teacher vacancies, a fivefold increase from previous years, spokeswoman Shannon Haber said.

Schools try to fill in with substitutes, but they’re in short supply, too. Only about a quarter of the pool of 1,000 qualified substitutes is willing to work in Fresno Unified, said Nikki Henry, a spokeswoman for the central California district with 70,000 students and 12,000 staffers.

At Berkeley High School, a shortage of substitutes means teachers are asked to fill in during their prep periods, leading to exhaustion and burnout typically not felt at the start of a school year.

“We are absolutely strained. This has been an incredibly stressful start to the year,” said Hasmig Minassian, a ninth-grade teacher who describes physical and mental exhaustion as she tries to juggle staffing needs and the emotional needs of students who are showing signs of more mental fragility and learning loss.

“It doesn’t feel like there are enough adults on these campuses to keep kids really safe. We feel short-staffed in a way we’ve never felt before,” she said. “You know the early videos of nurses crying in their cars? I kind of expect those to come out about teachers.”

The California shortages range from dire to less severe in places that planned ahead and beat the competition, but those are the minority, said Darling-Hammond of the board of education.

In a new twist, money is not the main problem. School districts have the funds to hire additional staff, thanks to billions in federal and state pandemic relief funding. There just aren’t people applying.

“We’re all competing for a shrinking piece of the pie,” said Mike Ghelber, assistant superintendent at the Morongo Unified School District in the Mojave Desert, which has more than 200 openings for special education aides, custodians, cafeteria workers and others. “I don’t know if everybody is getting snatched up, or if they don’t want to teach in the COVID era, but it’s like the well has dried up.”

The district of 8,000 students has ads in newspapers, radio and social media. Teachers are packing “now hiring” flyers into kids’ lunchboxes, with a long list of openings so families can spread the word. In the meantime, everyone is pitching in.

“Principals and administrators are out being crossing guards. Secretaries are directing traffic because we’re short on supervisors,” Ghelber said.

The shortages raise concerns that schools will hire underqualified teachers, particularly in low-income communities where it’s already harder to fill positions, Darling-Hammond said.

Class sizes also are expanding.

Mount Diablo Unified School District, which serves 28,000 students east of San Francisco, has had to fill several elementary school classrooms at the maximum capacity of 32 students. It’s not ideal for social distancing but frees up teachers for online school.

About 150 kids initially signed up for distance learning, but with spiking infections blamed on the highly contagious delta variant, the number ballooned to 600 when school reopened. The same happened in Fresno, where enrollment in remote learning exploded to 3,800 from 450.

Superintendent Adam Clark said the Mount Diablo district is offering $5,000 signing bonuses for speech pathologists and $1,500 for paraeducators who help students with learning needs.

San Francisco Unified is offering a similar starting bonus for 100 paraeducator jobs. Nearby West Contra Costa County Unified has set $6,000 signing bonuses for teachers, with a third paid out after the first month and rest when the teacher enters year three.

Districts in Oklahoma, North Carolina, New Jersey and elsewhere are offering a range of cash incentives for new teachers, particularly in low-income and low-performing schools.

Of a dozen officials interviewed in California districts, only one said it was facing no shortages.

Long Beach Unified, the state’s fourth-largest district with over 70,000 students, anticipated the need last spring for a hiring spree of about 400 jobs.

“We went full aggressive,” assistant superintendent David Zaid said, including beefing up human resources for a 24-hour turnaround on contract offers.

A virtual interview team worked through the summer. Recruitment events drew hundreds of applicants, and as HR employees met hiring benchmarks, they got rewards like catered breakfasts and an ice cream truck.

“We probably would have experienced the same shortages as others,” Zaid said. “But we became much more assertive, and as a result, we are not in the same position.”

Lauren Davis, who has a history of driving under the influence, entered her pleas Monday to two counts of second-degree murder in the 2017 deaths of Violet Campbell, 16, and Alexys Garcia, 25, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O’Malley said.

On Nov. 22, 2017, the night before Thanksgiving, Davis was driving her SUV with four passengers in Livermore when she lost control of the vehicle, careening off the side of the road and rolling over several times.

Campbell was seated in the seat behind the driver and died instantly. Garcia was in the rear passenger seat and was thrown from the vehicle. She died seven days later at a hospital from massive head injuries, O’Malley said.

Two other passengers were injured, but not seriously. Davis, who was 26 at the time, also was not seriously injured.

Witnesses said Davis drove through a red light. A California Highway Patrol expert estimated her speed was 70 to 80 mph.

“This senseless tragedy took the lives of two young women and could have been avoided,” O’Malley said.

Six months before the deadly crash, Davis had pleaded guilty to alcohol-related reckless driving in a 2016 case. She also had been arrested and charged with another DUI-related case from Oct. 9, 2013. She pleaded to reckless driving under the influence of marijuana.

She is expected to be sentenced on Oct. 19.

Foul play isn’t suspected in the death, which closed the station about 6 a.m., BART officials said.

Trains are being turned back at the El Cerrito Del Norte station and there is a 10 minute delay on the Richmond line, BART officicals said shortly after 8 a.m.

AC Transit bus 72M is providing service between Richmond and El Cerrito Del Norte stations.

The resolution asks Alameda County to allocate money from the COVID-19 stimulus package to the city of Oakland Department of Violence Prevention.

Earlier this week, Oakland approved the creation of a new police academy, which will put more officers on the streets. With the relief money, the city also would be able to fund more mental health services, medical clinics within the community, housing support and, among other things, help small minority owned businesses.

“When we talk about gun violence in Oakland, the majority of those who are losing their lives are … Latino men and our Black Men,” City Councilmember Treva Reid said. “So this resolution is to uplift the crisis we are in with 100 lives lost, the majority of which are Black and brown men and women dying on our streets.”

The Oakland officer who was shot and wounded in the line of duty early Wednesday was in stable condition. He and another officer responded to a report of a man with a gun in the 2100 block of Telegraph Avenue and when they arrived were met with gunfire, police said. Both officers fired back, and the suspect, a 50-year-old man, also was wounded and last reported in stable condition.

Oakland officially recorded its 100th homicide Monday. Ten of those homicides happened in just the past week, with four occurring last weekend.

Mattis’ appearance came during the sixth day of a high-profile trial in San Jose, California. The U.S. government alleges that Holmes duped sophisticated investors, patients and customers into believing that her startup, Theranos, had developed a technology that could scan for an array of potential health problems with just a few drops of blood. Existing tests generally each require a vial of blood.

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During more than three hours of maskless testimony delivered behind plexiglass, Mattis recalled how impressed he was with Holmes when he first met her in 2011 while still serving as a four-star general in the Marine Corps, where he oversaw U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A few months after retiring from the military in 2013, Mattis joined the Theranos board and also invested some of his own savings in the startup. In 2017, Mattis joined the cabinet of President Donald Trump.

Mattis, nicknamed “Mad Dog,” while he was in the military, testified that Holmes initially struck him as a “sharp, articulate, committed” CEO who drew his interest when she described the compact blood-testing machine called Edison that Theranos was developing.

Holmes assured him that the Edison would be able to scan for health problems with just a finger prick — a concept that Mattis testified he found “pretty breathtaking'” for its potential applications in the field of battle.

“I’m [a] strong believer in what you have designed/built and hope we can get it in the theater soon to test it,” Mattis wrote in a March 2013 email shortly before he retired from the military. In other emails, Mattis affectionately addressed Holmes as “young Elizabeth.”

While cross-examining Mattis, a lawyer for Holmes showed a July 2013 email from the retired general that suggested he had muted expectations for Theranos’ impact on the military. “U.S. military may be a customer but likely not immediately, or in a big way,” Mattis wrote while seeking clearance to be on the Theranos board.

In another email presented by government prosecutors during Mattis’ testimony, Holmes encouraged his belief in what Theranos could do for the military. “This initiative is a small way of being able to serve and we will do whatever it takes to make it successful,” Holmes assured him in her email.

As Mattis testified, Holmes watched him intently without displaying much emotion. Holmes maintains her innocence, arguing she poured her life into an invention that she sincerely believed would revolutionize medicine yet failed in her quest.

Holmes, 37, ended up convincing Mattis, 71, to join the Theranos board of directors later in 2013, even though he had no medical background. Mattis testified that Holmes wanted him on the board to help teach her about leadership and team building.

Besides joining the board, Mattis said he also decided to invest $85,000 of his own savings so he would have some “skin in the game.” Theranos paid him $150,000 annually as a board member, according to evidence submitted Wednesday by Holmes’ lawyers, though Mattis testified he told Holmes he would do it for free because “I believe in what you are doing.”

By the time he left Theranos in late 2016, Mattis testified he had lost faith in Holmes. His disillusionment began a year earlier after a series of explosive articles published in The Wall Street Journal exposed troubling flaws and inaccuracies in Theranos’ blood-testing technology. Those revelations triggered Theranos’ downfall and culminated in the criminal case against Holmes, which could send her to prison for up to 20 years if she is convicted.

“There became a point where I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos any more,” Mattis said, although he couldn’t pinpoint a precise date when he lost faith in Holmes.

Mattis isn’t the only well-known board member or investor who became enthralled with Holmes and Theranos.

Theranos’ other board members included other former Cabinet members such as the late George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and former Wells Fargo Bank CEO Richard Kovacevich. The list of billionaire investors that once valued the privately held company at $9 billion — with half of the stock owned by Holmes — included media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Walmart’s Walton family and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

Some of them are expected to testify during a trial scheduled to run through Dec. 17.

Big retailers aren’t the only ones dealing with theft — small businesses are getting hit too. The owner of Hot Cookie on Polk Street said several successful break-ins and attempted break-ins have cost them tens of thousands of dollars. 

Videos of people running out of department stores and drug stores with fists full of valuable merchandise have gone viral, and now have the attention of the mayor. 

“We can’t continue to allow lawlessness to dominate our city and have an affect on closures and people feeling unsafe,” said Breed. 

The mayor and police chief announced the organized retail theft unit will go from two officers to six.

And the police department is hiring more retired officers to walk neighborhoods.

“We can’t take the financial hit because of these burglaries,” said Hot Cookie owner Ryan Jones.

He hopes the focus on retail theft will help stop a costly cycle of burglaries and thefts at small businesses like their Polk Street Store.

“Opened in February of last year and in that time five successful break-ins, several attempted break-ins and other property damage to our windows and doors,” said Jones.

At The Gallery of Jewels in Noe Valley, the sign on the boarded up windows says thieves broke in on Labor Day — the third burglary since the beginning of the pandemic.

Business owners say the break-ins are financially and emotionally draining.

“How is this gonna disrupt my business? What did they take? Is everyone safe? Is someone still here? Is my safety a concern?” said Jones, who hopes the police department’s new plan makes a difference.

The measure was passed in a 5-1 vote.

Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell and her team will work out the logistics of how and when the requirement will take effect, but Johnson-Trammell indicated the when would be no earlier than Jan. 1 so as not to disrupt the fall semester and to give students time to get the vaccine, the district said.

The district is expected to present a plan to the school board by next month.

All exemptions required by law and a “personal belief exemption” will be included in the plan, according to the board’s resolution.

The most unique perspectives on the mandate came from the student members of the school board — some voiced their support, and others worry it might be too strict. 

“Particularly considering that parents and guardians have the ultimate decision-making power whether or not to receive the vaccine,” said Samantha Pal, student board director.

This leaves the student in an uncomfortable intersection if they themselves want the vaccine and their parents or guardians do not. 

Among the other concerns is when students and staff would have to comply.

Adopting a vaccine mandate in public schools is still controversial. Only Oakland and Los Angeles public schools have done it so far in California. Oakland, being the first school district in Northern California to pass such measure.

Piedmont Unified reportedly also approved a vaccine mandate Wednesday, while Berkeley Unified and West Contra Costa Unified proposals were still under consideration.

It’s an issue that’s garnering lots of attention from parent groups and community organizers, with one group in Oakland holding a news conference as the school board meeting started.

“We have to have mandatory vaccines in order to make sure that the schools are safe,” said Mark Airgood.

During Wednesday’s meeting, every opportunity for public comment was dominated by parents and students wanting to voice their perspective on mandatory shots.

“We have the opportunity to prevent and to stop further spread of this disease, and we have to give our kids that opportunity,” said Ismael Almendares.

“I am opposed to vaccine mandates,” said parent Sean Wong. “Vaccine mandates will not get rid of COVID-19 in the schools. Vaccinated and unvaccinated can both get infected and transmit.”

Cousins approved the settlement preliminarily at an 11 a.m. virtual hearing Wednesday before attorneys for both sides. 

“I am inclined to approve the settlement,” Cousins told the attorneys and others present at the hearing. 

The judge also agreed to extend the date for the final approval to Jan. 19. The hearing for the final approval was previously set for Dec. 15. The extended time will give attorneys more time to educate the jail’s incarcerated people on the agreement and more time for people to raise objections to the settlement if they choose to. 

The settlement will require sweeping changes at the jail, not only for people with psychiatric disabilities but for incarcerated people in general. Changes will be made over the next two years and the agreement will be in effect for six years, depending on the progress made. 

Besides mental health care, changes will be made to out-of-cell time, ADA accommodations at the jail for people with mental health disabilities, use of force, discharge planning and among other things suicide prevention. 

Recent suicides at the jail prompted the lawsuit. Nineteen people died by suicide since 2014 and 31 more died at the jail from other causes. Fifty deaths are a lot for a jail with a population the size of Santa Rita, attorneys for the incarcerated people at Santa Rita said. 

Attorney Jeff Bornstein, one of the attorneys representing the jail’s incarcerated people, said significant changes need to be made and they are underway. 

Already, a lot fewer people are in restrictive housing, he said. 

But, he said, “We have a long way to go.”

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” he said. 

The goal is to make things right at the jail rather than simply meeting the minimum requirements for the treatment of the incarcerated people there, Bornstein said. 

He said it would be great if people with mental illness didn’t have to go to jail at all. 

A big issue addressed in the agreement is how incarcerated people are treated when they are released. In the past, incarcerated people have been turned out onto the streets. 

Under the settlement, incarcerated people with serious mental health issues will get a “warm handoff” to community-based providers who can help secure needed resources for the formerly incarcerated people when they are released.

Besides the provision of adequate mental health care, the agreement calls for adequate out-of-cell time each day, including increasing out-of-cell time in the first three months of the agreement. 

The agreement also calls for measures to prevent suicide and self-harm among incarcerated people, including limiting the use of safety cells, a small room with nothing but a grate in the floor. The county will be building suicide-resistant cells as part of the agreement and limiting the use of and hopefully phasing out safety cells, Bornstein said. 

In all, seven major changes are in store for incarcerated people at the jail. Progress at the jail will be monitored by joint neutral experts and attorneys. 

“Our agency is in full support and agreement,” Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said. “This has been an extensive process that will make our jail safer for staff and those in custody while addressing the specific needs of our population. 

“The agreement will bring much needed improvements and resources to our criminal justice system in Alameda County,” he said.

The report also found the university retaliated against employees who tried to protect the victims.

Now, one of the critical whistleblowers, who was fired for speaking up is now sharing his story exclusively with NBC Bay Area.

Steve O’Brien was the former deputy athletic director at San Jose State.

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He told NBC Bay Area in 2019, swim coach Sage Hopkins shared concerns about an investigation going back more than a decade, looking into suspected sexual abuse by head trainer Scott Shaw.

“That he had mistreated and sexually abused multiple swimmers and that the university’s thin records were not maintained,” he said.

Hopkins took his complaints to the NCAA and O’Brien said top administrators asked him to discipline the swim coach without clearly explaining why.

“I was bring directed to carry that out and it struck me as wrong in an active Title IX investigation. I couldn’t be a party to that,” O’Brien told NBC Bay Area Wednesday.

Then, O’Brien took his concerns to CSU legal counsel. Weeks later, former SJSU athletic director Marie Tuite fired him.

“I knew I did the right thing,” he said. “I knew I would have severe professional consequences for me but I thought mostly about the student athletes and the ongoing abuse and the efforts of the swim coach to call them to light and put an end to it.”

Federal investigators concluded 23 student athletes were inappropriately touched by Shaw and blasted San Jose State for allowing him to continue to work with female athletes.

The federal report says he is accused of sexually harassing a student athlete as recently as February 2020. The justice department also admonished the university for retaliating against two employees including O’Brien.

“It does make me grateful I came forward because if I hadn’t, I wonder how much longer it’s would have gone on,” he added.

NBC Bay Area reached out to San Jose State, which provided a statement which said in part: “We thank all the individuals who courageously came forward during the investigation. To the affected student- athletes and their families, we deeply apologize.”

Earlier this week, San Jose State University agreed to pay $1.6 million to the victims and overhaul its Title IX office and its process for responding to sexual harassment complaints.

As, for O’Brien, he and his attorneys are pursuing legal action against the CSU claiming wrongful termination.

“Steve O’Brien acted to protect another whistleblower in a Title IX investigation and he was fired three weeks later,” said Tamarah Prevost, O’Brien’s attorney.

O’Brien told NBC Bay Area that even though his professional reputation took a hit, he would make the same decision again in a heartbeat.

“I have a family. I have to be able to look at them and tell them i did the right thing independent of the consequences,” he said.

The department already deployed an electric patrol vehicle program last year and has over forty electric and hybrid cars in use to cut emissions.

But the Model Y, set to make its first appearance at the Fremont Street Eats Public Safety Night on October 1, can last up to two patrol shifts on one charge and will add 61 more miles per charge compared to the Tesla Model S 85, the model that they began using in 2019.

Residents can meet the new patrol care at the Fremont Main Library next Friday from 5 to 9 p.m.

In a statement to NBC Bay Area Wednesday, a hospital spokesperson said Good Samaritan Hospital does not discuss personnel issues but “the intensity of the pandemic during the past year and a half has made it common for healthcare professionals to re-evaluate their life priorities, choosing to spend more time with their loved ones or furthering their careers.”

NBC Bay Area obtained an internal hospital memo sent out Wednesday showing Good Sam’s CEO Tomi Ryba told providers “the departures were entirely voluntary as well as normal in the course of operations for any large hospital.”

The two departures come shortly after a series of investigative reports by NBC Bay Area exposing severe staffing shortages, patient care problems and allegations of blatant lack of care. Nurses initially came forward earlier in the year protesting in front of the hospital; then patients and family members contacted NBC Bay Area sharing their experiences at Good Sam that they described as “inhumane” and “horrific.”

In June, the Investigative Unit first reported on the concerns. The issues ranged from a broken elevator delaying a patient’s emergency care to flies in the facility’s intensive care unit. One state inspection report noted flies and maggots inside a patient’s nose and failure by staff to report the insects.

In July, regulators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) blasted Good Sam’s upper management team saying systemic and re-occurring failures by hospital leadership put patients in harms way repeatedly. Federal regulators hit Good Samaritan Hospital with a “notice of termination,” which places the facility’s Medicare contract in jeopardy. The hospital is still working with CMS to correct the violations.

Neither Good Samaritan Hospital or CMS have publicly released the report but the 65-page report was leaked to NBC Bay Area by a high-level hospital source. The report also includes the hospital’s plan of correction.

View the 65-page CMS “Notice of Termination” here

In August, the Investigative Unit broke the story of Good Samaritan Hospital and its sister facility Regional Medical Center mishandling and even losing several patient bodies. NBC Bay Area spoke to a woman whose mother’s body, she said, was stacked under another large body for days at the hospital and a young mother who accuses Good Samaritan Hospital of “throwing away” her baby’s remains.

In a statement, the hospital acknowledged the problem calling it rare; it also apologized to the families affected.

Then in September, the Investigative Unit obtained an internal hospital memo dated September 20 where Good Sam’s CEO Tomi Ryba confirmed Dr. Thaler’s pending resignation. She wrote he will be joining his family on the East Coast.

“Klaus came to us 18 months ago, taking over a key role at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic,” she wrote. “His leadership during the pandemic effectively rewrote the book for Good Samaritan Hospital on how we care for COVID-19 patients.”

On a call Wednesday, Dr. Klaus told NBC Bay Area he had no comment. Good Sam’s former associate chief nursing officer, Damian Gulbransen, never responded to our requests for comment.

The hospital recently embarked on a public relations campaign across the Bay Area. Over the weekend it took out a full-page newspaper ad to release an open letter to the community. In the letter, the hospital said it is expanding safeguards, adding more nurses, recruiting more doctors and investing millions on new equipment and patient care supplies.

Ryba also touted her transparency and ability to talk about tough challenges in several pre-produced videos posted on social media.

After months of repeated requests for an interview, Ryba nor anyone from Good Samaritan Hospital or its parent company, HCA Healthcare, has ever agreed to an interview with NBC Bay Area.

Ryba told staff in the internal memo she would be providing an update on Dr. Thaler’s replacement “in the coming days.”

Watch Our Entire Investigative Series

• Part 1: Dangerous Patient Care at Good Samaritan Hospital: Inspection Records, Inside Sources
• Part 2: ‘Nothing’s Changed’: Good Samaritan Nurses Picket Hospital Over Staffing, Safety Concerns
• Part 3: Good Samaritan Hospital, Regional Medical Center to Add Staff After Violations, Complaints
• Part 4: Medicare Agency Hits Good Samaritan Hospital With “Notice of Termination”
• Part 5: Details of the 65-page report from regulators not yet publicly available but leaked to NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit
• Part 6: South Bay Hospitals Accused of Losing and Mishandling Patient Bodies
• Part 7: Good Samaritan Hospital Chief Medical Officer Resigning after Nursing Officer Exit

Candice Nguyen is an investigative reporter with NBC Bay Area. To contact her about this story or others, e-mail candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.

Residents said their community has been overrun by recreational vehicles and people living in cars – and now the city wants to make it permanent.

A line of RVs and cars being used as homes can be seen throughout Hunters Point Expressway.

“These unfortunate brothers and sisters who are facing economic calamity at this time, this is a city and county of San Francisco problem,” San Francisco resident Anthony Alan Simon said. “This is not a Bayview problem.”

During the pandemic people lost jobs and the areas unhoused population skyrocketed. But neighbors said the problems are piling up as more RVs move in.

One resident reports a pile of medical waste and needles they have to walk through in the neighborhood.

Residents said there are real concerns about the conditions with generators that run all night, propane tanks, dumping and waste. Now neighbors are worried about a proposal for a vehicle triage center or safe parking site with 150 spaces by Candlestick Point State Recreation Area in a community with challenges.

“Until we rebuilt Candlestick and the issues listed above are not resolved, we are not in a position to accept or in agreement to organizing a vehicle triage center in the Bayview community district,” San Francisco resident Cynthia Bell said.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Shamman Walton, who represents District 10, said the proposal addresses the reality of the situation with so many people living in vehicles.

“We aren’t going to be moving folks and sending them back to the streets in the middle of a pandemic. What we are proposing is a vehicle triage site,” Walton said.

Walton added the site would have restrooms and sanitation support, security around the clock and janitorial services. The proposed triage site would also work with organizations that connect people to housing, according to Walton.

The goal? “Do everything we can to get people back on track to where they don’t have to live in vehicles,” Walton said.

Revealing these text messages was part of the prosecution’s efforts to show that Holmes knew what was going on at Theranos even as things were falling apart.

About 12,000 text messages sent between Holmes and former Theranos Executive Sunny Balwani were extracted from phones and computers, including one where Balwani referred to a Theranos lab, with an expletive, as a “disaster zone.”

Other text messages showed Holmes expressed concern that a Wall Street Journal reporter was showing up to see the lab.

“For a lack of a more legal term, they want to show the two were in kahoots,” said Esquire Digital Legal Analyst Aron Solomon.

Holmes and Balwani were working together, and worrying together, about their machines including one dubbed “Edison.”

“These messages show intimacy, a knowledge of how the company was operating and not operating,” said Solomon, “and they’re absolutely text messages that show that the Edison black box wasn’t where it needed to be.”

Also on the stand on Wednesday was retired four-star general and former Theranos board member James Mattis.

He said he was impressed by Holmes and hoped to use Theranos machines in the field of battle on soldiers, but was ultimately disappointed that he was not allowed to test the machines.

General Mattis said he left the Theranos board when former President Donald Trump nominated him for Defense Secretary.

Mattis said he invested $85,000 into the company and was granted Theranos stock options. His board salary would’ve been $150,000 a year.

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The NHL announced Wednesday that it found no evidence that Sharks winger Evander Kane gambled on league games.

Kane’s estranged wife, Anna, alleged on Instagram in July that Evander bet on NHL games and had a gambling addiction.

The NHL’s report states as follows:

“The investigation included a detailed review of social media, public data, and court filings from the bankruptcy proceeding initiated by Mr. Kane in January 2021 and his pending divorce proceeding; a review of sports betting data and analysis; and in person and virtual interviews of members of the Sharks organization and others, including Mr. Kane. It should be noted that Ms. Kane refused to participate in the investigation.

“The investigation uncovered no evidence to corroborate Ms. Kane’s accusations that Mr. Kane bet or otherwise participated in gambling on NHL games, and no evidence to corroborate the allegations that Mr. Kane ‘threw’ games or did not put forward his best effort to help the Sharks win games. To the contrary, the evidence raises doubts about the veracity of the allegations.

“While Mr. Kane denied the accusations, our findings are not based on these denials but instead on other evidence uncovered during the investigation. The investigation was conducted by Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP in conjunction with NHL Security.

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Last week in an interview with ESPN’s Linda Cohn, Kane vehemently denied the allegations and was confident the NHL’s investigation would clear him.

“Obviously, incredibly false,” Kane told Cohn of the allegations made by his wife. “It’s unfortunate that that transpired. It’s unfortunate that those allegations, false allegations, were made. Obviously, when they happened I understood the magnitude of them immediately not knowing what was going to happen next.

“But I’m confident because I know that’s not true, I know none of what she is saying is true, and I was very confident and comfortable with where I was knowing that I was going to be exonerated, am going to be exonerated of those allegations.”

The NHL now considers this specific matter closed, barring any new information that might arise in relation to Kane’s gambling. The report concludes as follows:

“Our review of public and non-public documents relating to Mr. Kane, including data and analysis from a leading sports integrity service, and our interviews of those individuals most familiar with Mr. Kane’s on-ice performance over the past three seasons yielded no evidence to corroborate Ms. Kane’s allegations that her husband gambled on NHL games or ‘threw’ hockey games.”

The NHL’s statement did also note that the league is also thoroughly investigating “additional unrelated allegations involving potential wrongdoing by Mr. Kane.”

On Tuesday, Anna Kane filed a domestic violence restraining order application in Santa Clara as part of her divorce case with Evander. In the court filing obtained by the San Jose Mercury News, Anna accuses Evander of sexual assault and domestic violence.

In the filing, Anna Kane claims that Evander has a “history of domestic violence against me” and that she “walked on eggshells for fear that he would get mad and take out his anger on me.”

Evander Kane’s lawyer, Travis Krepelka, told the Mercury News as part of a long statement that “Evander denies ever abusing Ms. Kane or their daughter Kensington, whom he cherishes.”

The NHL will have no further comment on the latest accusations until the investigation is complete.

Kane, 30, has played in the NHL for 12 years and is entering the fourth year of a seven-year, $49 million contract with the Sharks. Last season he totaled 22 goals and 27 assists in 56 games. 

The San Jose Sharks released the following statement on Wednesday night.

“The San Jose Sharks are aware of additional allegations that are unrelated to the National Hockey League’s initial investigation of Evander Kane. We take the allegations very seriously and have been in communication with the NHL. The League will continue to have our full cooperation regarding the ongoing investigation. The Sharks and Evander have agreed that he will not be participating in Sharks 2021 Training Camp until further notice. The Sharks will have no further comment on this matter at this time.”

Sharks training camp begins Thursday in San Jose.

The blaze was burning in the area of Fremont Drive and Napa Road, according to Cal Fire. At least 40 acres burned.

No evacuations had been issued as of 3:07 p.m., according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Further information was not immediately available.

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Higher elevation inland locations in the Santa Cruz Mountains have been near or at record dry levels for wildfire fuel moistures since April. This has had the effect of lengthening this year’s fire season with a much earlier start for active and intense wildfires.

Conditions now are near their seasonally low moisture values common for late September. With diablo wind frequency highest in October, SJSU’s Craig Clements says the convergence of gusty dry wind and annually low fuel moistures are why early fall signals the peak of fire season danger.

So, how can we improve current conditions and when can we see reduced fire risk? The key remains the weather.  

As we saw recently with heavier rain in northwest California, wildfire activity there decreased considerably.  

Cooler temperatures and a few storms bringing more than an inch of rain can go a long way to giving wildfire fuel moistures a boost and reducing fire danger in the region that’s critically high since spring.

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In an oversimplified interpretation, the scene could be taken to represent that Fernández is not afraid to get messy for her art. But her work bears that out. 

To wit — Fernández is an artist who has challenged federal authorities by painting a section of the Mexican border wall sky blue while dressed in a tango outfit —  beautified the gritty wooden walls of San Francisco cardboard collector trucks — and created an art installation in a drug-infested neighborhood in Cape Town, South Africa. 

“For me, it’s how can you bring awareness and visibility through these actions that can be poetic?”  Fernández said in between bouts of painting. 

It’s likely Fernández developed her artistic fearlessness growing-up in her native Tampico, Mexico — where she noted one could be taken-out any minute by a mango falling from a tree or by crocodiles that live in the town’s lake. As a kid, she learned the kind of life skills that could only come from a place like Tampico. 

“If you get chased by a crocodile,” she explained, “you have to run in a zig-zag because they can’t turn because their hands are so short.” 

In Tampico, what people lacked in means, they made up for with creativity. She recalled people using the lids from coke cans to fortify the corners of cardboard houses, employing old garage doors as walls and discarded car seats as furniture. 

“What’s allowed there is ingenuity,” Fernández said. “People make something out of nothing.” 

It’s understandable that the town’s maker mentality would rub-off on an artist whose bold projects around the world have earned her international recognition.  

Fernández was eleven-years-old when her father, a doctor, took a job in San Diego and relocated the family to the United States. In San Diego, she was exposed to life along the Tijuana border which would become a central theme in her art. In school, she met girls who waited in line every day to cross the border to attend classes in the U.S. and then return home at night.  

“They would wait in line sometimes almost two hours,” she said. 

If her Tampico upbringing manifested in her thinking, it came out in her passion for sculptures and drawings. She was drawn to learning languages, but wasn’t as enthusiastic about learning in school. 

She was turned down by the universities she applied to and began taking art classes in community college. A sculpture teacher urged her to submit her work to a team from San Francisco’s Art Institute visiting the area to recruit new students. She was stunned when the school not only accepted her, but also awarded her a scholarship. 

Through her art, coupled with the activist spirit of the Bay Area, she began to address inequalities — such as what she viewed as a lack of opportunities for women in her native Mexico. She employed the metaphor of the tango dancing she’d become involved with, where compression between partners is required to sustain the dance — thus emphasizing the importance of equal contribution.  As a statement, Fernández began to don her tango outfit and videotape herself doing domestic chores like ironing or sweeping. From there she created paintings from the images. 

To draw attention to the inequities of the U.S.-Mexican border, she hatched a plan to “erase” a section of the border wall by painting it sky blue — also while dressed in her tango dress and heals. She managed to not only paint a large swath of the wall, but also avoid arrest by the border patrol agents who eventually showed up. 

In another border-themed project, she and her husband wrapped their heads in silver blankets — the kind given to immigrants in border holding facilities —  and attempted to kiss.  

“We could only do so for about a minute because it would start asphyxiate you,” she said. 

During the pandemic as people flooded to grocery stores to clean the shelves of toilet paper, Fernández instead raced to the art store to buy several large canvases which she filled with images of the space blanket project. Even as the pandemic shut down life across the world, Fernández stayed perfectly content in her studio, covering the canvases, and collaterally,  herself with paint. 

“I love the solitude, I love the isolation,” she said flanked by a large painting of the two heads wrapped in silvery material. “I have no problem spending five to seven hours completely in silence.” 

In a sense Fernández’ work is a tribute — and maybe even an airing of grievances toward the city and country of her birth. Hers is a complicated relationship with a place she recalls with fondness, while also observing its shortcomings of opportunity and gender equity. She remains shackled to it both in memory and in art. Like her work clothes, her version of Tampico is covered in layers of paint, which she peels at with each project. 

“I wouldn’t be who I am without having grown up there,” Fernández said before returning to her canvas. “I think that growing up in Tampico, it provided me that sense of magic that I carry with me all the time.” 

On the day the oldest park ranger in the United States turned 100 years old, the West Contra Costa School District renamed Juan Crespi Middle School in El Sobrante as Betty Reid Soskin Middle School.

Though confined to a wheelchair at Wednesday’s ceremony, Soskin is still a park guide at the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond. She is also known for her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, co-founding Reid’s Records in Berkeley, and working for state Assembly members Dion Aroner and Loni Hancock.

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Soskin was also part of the planning and development of the park where she still works.

“I don’t know what one might do to justify a long life; I think that you have pretty much got it made,” Soskin said, after cutting the red ribbon officially marking the name change. Because of COVID-19, organizers encouraged people to watch through the district’s Facebook Live feed, which cut off during Soskin’s remarks.

The event brought out state and local education officials, local county Supervisor John Gioia and Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Walnut Creek.

Gioia recalled, during meetings to establish the national park, how Soskin emphasized telling the truth of what happened in the shipyards during World War II. 

“I remember one of the first conversations I had with Betty about the new national park in Richmond, and she said ‘I’m not sure how I feel about this park yet. I have sort of a love-hate relationship with it.'” 

The park was meant to celebrate the war effort, Gioia said. “But there was a lot of racism and injustice that happened on the home front, like in the Kaiser shipyards. And Betty experienced some of that.” 

“But Betty, as we know, doesn’t stop at just telling the truth,” Gioia said. “It’s been about changing that inequity and making it fair, and just, and equitable. So when you have someone that calls out the problems that other people don’t want to talk about, then moves to change that situation for the better – whether in her own personal role as an activist in the East Bay or representing a state legislature and making policy – that’s really the true sign of commitment. What’s being recognized here is everything that Betty stood for.”

California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said he wanted to name Soskin as an ambassador and spokesperson for California public education.

“It is probably difficult for Miss Betty Reid Soskin to be here and hear all these accolades showered upon here, one of the things I have been privileged to learn about Miss Betty Reid Soskin is she is a humble leader, a modest leader, whose actions speak louder than anyone’s words.” 

“But thank you for giving us this honor, because what you call something does matter,” Thurmond said, getting emotional while pointing out state legislators just passed AB-101, a bill requiring all state public high school to teach ethnic studies.

“We have a champion. We have someone who has fought for civil rights, for women’s rights, for racial justice, and our children deserve to have someone to look up to,” said Thurmond, who said his child attended the school. “I’m proud to be the parent of an alum of Bettey Reid Soskin Middle School.”

Principal Guthrie Fleischman described a staff meeting last November, when the idea of changing the school’s name came up. From there momentum picked up and once the decision-makers laid out criteria for a new name – a local connection and an inspiring name connected to racial equality and social justice – “It was not a long debate, to be honest with you.” 

“I can’t think of another time when I’ve seen a community as inspired as this community is, by attaching themselves to your name,” he told Soskin.

The ordinance more than doubles the amount of water that new large buildings will be required to collect and re-use on site, said its author Supervisor Rafael Mandelman. He said it also directs the public utilities commission to come up with a plan for expanding the city’s supply and use of recycled water.

“This summer of intense drought and terrible wildfires reminds us that the climate crisis is now, and it is not going away on its own,” he said. “We must dramatically and quickly reduce carbon emissions, but even as we pursue zero carbon emissions goals for our city and our world, water re-use and recycling will be increasingly necessary for our survival.”

The ordinance was endorsed by a union official, Larry Mazzola, Jr., business manager of UA Local 38 Plumbers and Pipefitters, according to a news release issued by Mandelman’s office.

“The re-use of water from on-site treated graywater systems for toilets and other non-potable uses are a proven way to reduce demand for potable water as California faces the threat of persistent water shortages,” Mazzola said. “This ordinance is a step in the right direction and will have a significant positive impact on jobs for our skilled and trained workforce to provide sustainable work opportunities moving forward.”

The U.S. Space Force on Tuesday revealed a new prototype dress uniform for its guardians, according to a report from the Air Force Times.

The uniforms were on display at the Air Force Association’s annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland. They’re navy blue with a series of silver buttons that run from the right shoulder to the chest diagonally.

Former President Trump established Space Force in 2019, creating the new military service.

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Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo said she wants to sentence Peterson in November before deciding whether he deserves a new trial over alleged juror misconduct. She set an Oct. 6 hearing to set a date for resentencing him to a life term with no chance of parole.

The California Supreme Court overturned Peterson’s death sentence last year because jurors who personally disagreed with the death penalty but were willing to impose it were improperly dismissed.

Prosecutors said they won’t seek the death penalty if Peterson gets a new trial.

The high court found there was considerable circumstantial evidence incriminating him in the first-degree murder of Laci Peterson, 27, who was eight months pregnant, and the second-degree murder of the boy they planned to name Connor.

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Prosecutors said Peterson took his wife’s body from their Modesto home on Christmas Eve 2002 and dumped her in San Francisco Bay from his fishing boat. The body of his wife and the boy’s fetus washed ashore in April 2003.

Peterson’s lawyers are seeking a new trial on allegations a juror committed misconduct by falsely answering questions during the selection process.

Defense lawyers said the woman, who coauthored a book on the case, eagerly sought to be a juror in the case and did not disclose she had been a crime victim.

The woman known as Juror 7 did not reveal during jury selection that she had been beaten by a boyfriend while pregnant in 2001. She also didn’t disclose that during another pregnancy she had obtained a restraining order against a boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, whom she feared would hurt her unborn child.

The judge denied a defense request to take depositions of the juror and witnesses to those crimes against her but said she could be questioned during an evidentiary hearing.

The juror, however, has said she won’t testify at a hearing unless she is granted immunity from prosecution on a possible perjury charge, attorneys said. If not, she will invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.

This change of season is also referred as the Autumn Equinox and it arrives at 12:20 p.m. in the Northern Hemisphere, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Locally, we can expect to transition from dry to rainy season, NBC Bay Area meteorologist Kari Hall said.

Going into October, the Bay Area normally sees average monthly rainfall amounts from a little over 2 inches in Santa Rosa to about 0.80” in San Jose.

The region also experiences occasional offshore winds which can heighten the fire danger and heat up to coast, Hall said.

According to the Climate Prediction Center, the Bay Area will likely experience warmer than normal temperatures and an equal chance of normal rainfall.

However, Hall explains that as La Niña develops, we may get dryer than normal conditions due to the storm track remaining farther north.

Specifically in the Bay Area, fall season is a constant battle between our Golden Gate Bridge fog to hot, dry Diablo winds.

If you’re looking forward to see fall foliage and orange and brown leaves cover the streets, wait until a couple weeks before Thanksgiving depending on how much rain and cool weather we receive.

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Nearly 91% of Marin County residents 12 and over have been fully vaccinated, according to the county’s COVID-19 vaccination dashboard. In San Mateo County, just over 90% of eligible residents are fully vaccinated.

Here’s a look at the percentage of fully vaccinated residents in the remaining Bay Area counties:

• Napa County: 85%
• Santa Clara County: 83%
• Contra Costa County: 81%
• San Francisco County: 81%
• Alameda County: 77%
• Sonoma County: 76%
• Solano County: 65%

The quake, centered about 5.5 miles east of Milpitas and about 9 miles northeast of San Jose, struck at 10:16, the USGS said.

No other information was immediately available. Updates to come.

The game scheduled to kick off at 5:20 p.m. will also serve as the 49ers’ season home opener at Levi’s Stadium.

49ers Enter Sunday Night Football Undefeated

San Francisco aims to remain undefeated after winning its first two games on the road: a 41-33 victory over the Detroit Lions in Week 1 and a 17-11 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles this past weekend.

Jimmy Garoppolo fought off No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance to win the starting quarterback job and he’s been a steadying force through two games, with no turnovers and 504 total passing yards.

San Francisco is fighting the injury bug again in 2021, though. The 49ers’ backfield trio of Elijah Mitchell, Trey Sermon and JaMycal Hasty all suffered injuries in Week 2 after starter Raheem Mostert was lost for the season a week prior.

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Green Bay followed up an ugly Week 1 loss to the New Orleans Saints with a convincing win over the Lions on Monday Night Football.

Detroit was ahead 17-14 at the half before the Packers scored 21 unanswered to finish the game.

Aaron Rodgers had four touchdowns while completing 22 of 27 passes. Running back Aaron Jones caught three touchdowns and ran in another for a monster performance while playing with a heavy heart.

How to Watch 49ers vs. Packers on Sunday Night Football

Pregame coverage starts at 4 p.m. on NBC Bay Area with Football Night in America, followed by kickoff at 5:20 p.m.

The game can also be streamed on Peacock.

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OPD was working two crime scenes, the first in the 2100 block of Telegraph Avenue, where the officer was shot and a gun was recovered, police said. The injured officer returned fire and struck the suspect.

The injured officer was taken to a hospital in stable condition, police said.

“Had a chance to talk to him, had a chance to hear from him, so that was good,” OPD Chief LeRonne Armstrong said.

The second scene was in the 2100 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard, where the suspect was barricaded in a housing complex for veterans and armed with a knife for a brief time before being taken into custody, police said. A knife was recovered at that scene.

Sherlyn Wilson, who lives on the fifth floor of the complex, was worried the situation would trigger one of her neighbors to step in.

“I was just worried that he would come to our floors, and I didn’t know if he had a weapon because a lot of us are holding weapons, so that was the biggest worry,” Wilson said.

OPD called in its crisis intervention unit, mental health responders, negotiators and a tactical unit to persuade the man to come out peacefully.

Both shootings, including the one that injured the suspect, are under investigation, police said.

The suspect was identified only as a man in his 50s. The wounded officer was not identified.

The standoff used so much of OPD’s shrinking manpower that the department had to call in mutual aid from the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, Berkeley police, California Highway Patrol and San Leandro police to help respond to other 911 calls.

“Obviously we have staffing shortages,” Armstrong said.

The countywide health order is aimed at countering a spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations this summer due to the highly infectious delta variant and unvaccinated residents.

County health officials estimate unvaccinated residents account for 95.9% of the county’s deaths so far.

“This order is necessary now to save lives, protect our overburdened healthcare system, and slow the pandemic enough to keep our schools open,” said Dr. Chris Farnitano, Contra Costa County Health Officer said in a news release.

The new order applies to businesses where people remove masks to eat or drink indoors, and to gyms and other indoor fitness facilities where patrons breathe more heavily due to exercise.

The order also requires workers in indoor areas of the businesses to show proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 by Nov. 1 or test weekly for COVID-19.

To show proof of vaccination, patrons need to show a photo ID and their vaccination record cards from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), or copies or pictures of their cards. Documentation from healthcare providers will also be accepted, as will digital COVID-19 vaccine records issued by the State of California.

A link to a digital vaccination, which can be downloaded onto a smartphone, can be found myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov.

More information about the health order is available at cchealth.org/coronavirus.

The current ordinance is set to expire Sept. 30, the same date the county’s temporary prohibition on rent increases expires.

Supervisors voted 3-2 to discontinue the ordinance, with District 1 Supervisor John Gioia and District 5 Supervisor Federal Glover voting to continue.

Gioia argued the pandemic is still disproportionately affecting residents of color and of lower-income, and wanted to extend the ordinance until at least the end of the year.

Board chair Diane Burgis said she was sympathetic to the people that are still hurting, but “I believe we need to move on. The economy hasn’t fully recovered and everywhere I go, all the business people I speak with, people are trying to hire, and we need to get people back to work.”

San Francisco also will see its eviction moratorium end this month. City leaders voted to extend the temporary ban through December, but a new state law set the deadline at Sept. 30, superseding the local ordinance, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Contra Costa board did unanimously adopt an agreement authorizing the county administrator to enter into an agreement with the California Business Consumer Services and Housing Agency to administer the county’s share of federal emergency rental assistance program 2 funds. According to a staff report, the program’s next round of funding would provide more than $70 million in relief to county households behind on rent or utilities.

The quake, centered on Monterey Bay 7.4 miles west of Moss Landing, or about halfway between Santa Cruz and Monterey, hit at 2:57 a.m., the USGS said.

No other information was immediately available. Updates to come.

Crews responded to an 8:10 p.m. report of a residential fire in the 2900 block of Sherbrooke Way, according to a 9:29 p.m. tweet from San Jose Fire Department.

The fire was under control by 8:59 p.m., but crews found a person dead inside the house. No additional information was provided.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

“Vaccination is one of the strongest tools out there to prevent infections,” said Oakland Unified board member Sam Davis.

Davis helped write the proposed policy that would require students get vaccinated in order to attend school.

The vote on this proposal is expected Wednesday.

“We would be the next big city to require vaccinations for 12 and up, it’s still a broad policy goal at this point,” said Davis. “We don’t have all of the details in our resolution that Los Angeles has in theirs.”

Berkeley Unified and Piedmont Unified school districts also are expected to vote Wednesday on similar vaccine mandates for students.

On Sept. 9, Los Angeles Unified School District became the first large school district in the country to require students to be vaccinated by January 2022.

The rules down south are strict — with no alternatives to vaccination. And the vaccine idea is spreading.  

A proposal for a vaccine mandate will be on the school board agenda in Berkeley too. 

That district’s vaccine requirement proposal is in the early stages. It’s not as strict as the mandate in Los Angeles, allowing students to get a shot or submit to weekly testing.

West Contra Costa schools are also exploring the possibility of a student mandate. All have one unanswered question — what happens to the kids who refuse?

Not all families are in favor of their kids getting COVID-19 shots. But one family feels it’s the only way to fight the deadly virus. 

“It’s there, kids are at risk, their parents are at risk, grandparents are at risk and it’s the best over all options it’s a win win,” said a supporter of the mandate.

PG&E has been faulted by a federal judge for not cutting power sooner in the massive Dixie Fire, which has burned more than 960,000 acres is now 90% contained. The fire has been tied to a rotted tree that fell onto a powerline several hours before flames erupted on the afternoon of July 13.

Since that disaster, the company adopted what it calls a “more aggressive”  shutoff policy – which involves recalibrating automatic switches to automatically cut off power at the sign of a blown fuse or power influx often associated with fire.

Since the new policy was put in place at the end of July across 11,500 miles of its highest risk power lines, the company says it has logged 279 outages, but just one small fire.

“PG&E believes this program has already prevented ignitions,” the company told U.S. Judge William Alsup.

While it did not detail what specific fires may have been avoided, the company said the new policy coincides with a 62% drop in fire ignitions over the same timeframe last year and a 50% drop in the average ignitions tracked between 2018 and 2020.

PG&E says it’s still working out the kinks in the system, resulting in “repeated and extensive outages” that have “become a significant cause of concern for those impacted individuals and organizations.” Part of the problem, it says, is that responding crews not only have to make repairs but must check the entire line before power can be restored. The company says it has adopted a 60 minute response time goal so as to get power back faster.

Communities in both Marin and the Santa Cruz mountains have complained that the utility’s new program has lead to dozens of what they call “unnecessarily long” outages. A Los Gatos neighborhood says they’ve suffered more than a dozen outages this year, due to the utility’s sensitivity switches. Neighbors say they understand the need to mitigate fire risk, but don’t understand why it takes PG&E so long to verify there is no fire, and turn the power back on. In some cases the outages have lasted days. PG&E has said it understands the frustration but must prioritize public safety. 

In response to other questions about the Dixie Fire, the company acknowledged to the judge that at least one of its system operators had considered, but rejected, shutting off the line that day.

The utility said its operator saw “no other indication of an emergency—such as an indication of a hazard or fire—that would have caused him to de-energize the line.”

But the judge cited electronic data – indicating a power fluctuation and that two fuses had blown on the line – in pressing the utility on whether it should have cut power as a precaution.

“In the circumstance of an outage without a known cause,’’ the company told the judge, “PG&E’s policies do not require distribution lines to be de-energized.”

“It made a horrible racket!” she recalled. 

Janet, who lives in Pleasanton, discovered someone had stolen the catalytic converter from her Prius. 

Her story is not uncommon. The Pleasanton Police Department received 27 reports of catalytic converter thefts in 2019, 64 reports in 2020, and 70 reports in 2021 so far. 

This mirrors a spike in catalytic converter thefts across the Bay Area, across California, and across the country since the start of the pandemic. 

“Since 2019, we’ve seen a 300% increase in the theft of catalytic converters,” said David Glawe, the president and CEO of the National Insurance Crime Bureau. 

Why Converters Get Stolen

Catalytic converters contain precious metals like rhodium, platinum, and palladium. Thieves can pocket hundreds of dollars for each stolen converter by selling them to recyclers and auto repair shops.

“The supply chain and the mining of these precious metals is difficult, which has caused the price to go up exponentially over the last year,” Glawe said, noting that the increase in thefts coincides with the increase in the prices of these metals.

It can take criminals two to three minutes using tools from a hardware store to swipe your converter, leaving you with a several thousand dollar part to replace. 

In California, it’s a violation of the state vehicle code to steal a converter. The penalty is a misdemeanor offense.

“You will go to jail,” emphasized Ryan Tujague, the Crime Prevention Officer with Pleasanton police, adding that there are more severe penalties if you’re found stealing multiple converters.

Tujague pointed out that while your converter may be easy to steal, there are also easy ways you can prevent your car from becoming a target.

Park Smart

The easiest (and cheapest) recommendation Tujague has to curb your risk is to think carefully about where you park. Garages are the safest option, but if that’s not possible, aim for driveways, well-lit areas and places with video surveillance. 

Etch Your Converter

Tujague said etching your catalytic converter with your license plate number, driver’s license number or phone number can deter thieves. You can buy an etcher for around $20 and do it yourself or you could ask a mechanic to do it for you. Some law enforcement agencies will help you do this etching for free. 

Cage Your Converter

A muffler shop can help you weld a rebar cage around your converter. Tujague explained that the metal cage will stop thieves from trying to saw off your converter. The rebar work may cost you several hundred dollars. 

Lock Your Converter

For more protection, Tujague recommends installing locks on your converter. You can buy locks designed to go on your converter. They typically sell online for between $100 and $400. Some locks you can install yourself, while others might require a mechanic’s help.

“It’s absolutely worth the money,” Tujague said. 

Will Insurance Cover Locks or Cages? 

An NICB spokesperson told us “it isn’t typical” that insurers would cover anti-theft device installation. However, NICB noted that installing an anti-theft device might earn you a discount on your overall insurance that could be packaged with other discounts such as a safe driver discount. 

Insurance Coverage

Look into what your insurance would cover should your converter be stolen. NICB explained that catalytic converter theft is generally only covered by insurance if the vehicle owner has “comprehensive insurance,” which is optional in California. Check to see what your deductible would be to repair a stolen catalytic converter.

 Which Vehicles Are Most At Risk? 

In Pleasanton, the vehicles targeted most are Ford F-150s, panel or transportation vans, Honda Accords, Honda Elements, and the most frequent target of all: the Toyota Prius. 

The Highway Loss Data Institute published a report this spring on theft losses for 2004-2009 Toyota Prius models and found that theft loss for these cars increased “substantially” in 2020. A spokesperson said HLDI believes a spike in catalytic converter theft is what is driving the increase in theft losses for Prius owners.

Many law enforcement agencies believe the Toyota Prius is targeted because the converter is used less frequently and is easy to access.  

NBC Bay Area reached out to Honda and Ford for comment on this story but did not hear back. 

Toyota did respond to us with a statement saying, “Catalytic converter theft is an industry-wide challenge.”

Toyota went on to say, “While not the solution to the problem as a whole, taking preventative measures like smart parking and adding the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to the catalytic converter can help protect drivers from theft.”

“I don’t want to keep dealing with it”

As for Janet, she feels grateful that her insurance wound up covering the $2,700 it cost to replace her catalytic converter. 

But now she is afraid that the thieves will return and steal her catalytic converter again. 

Her intuition is correct, Pleasanton police say many catalytic converter theft victims wind up having their converters stolen again once they’ve replaced the part. 

“Now I’m really thinking about just selling the car because I don’t want to keep dealing with it,” Janet said of her Prius.

The Fremont Unified School District, home to one of the largest Afghan populations in the country, is preparing  for the challenge. 

“When we saw turmoil in Afghanistan, our staff immediately started gathering resources and started to begin putting together a network of support for families that might be coming to us,” said Superintendent Christopher ‘CJ’ Cammack.

He added the refugees can expect resources such as translators readily available from the district’s diverse staff. 

The superintendent said language acquisition would be the top priority for the new students and the structure will be different depending on the developmental level of the child.

“They would be in the same classroom as the other students,” said Cammack. “They may receive additional support in English language development but they’ll have the same curriculum, same classroom. And we’ll find materials translated into their home language.”

As for how current students will adapt to the new students from Afghanistan, that’s a lesson taught both at school and at home. 

“Not judge people by their color as long as they’re a good person, they’re getting along, it’s good for him, it’s good for them,” said mother Tanya Ohri.

“The message to send to our community is ‘welcome them with open arms with grace and empathy,’” said Cammack.

In the South Bay, it was a group of women during what was called the Chicano Movement that created a template for political and social activism. Some of those women are still fighting for justice today.

Rachel Silva and Shirley Trevino are some of the fiercest women one will meet.

“They are the powerhouses of the Chicano Movement in San Jose,” professor and historian Nannette Regua said.

The Chicano Movement – a fight for social justice in the 1960s and 70s – began amid reports of police harassing and wrongly arresting Chicanos who visited Hellyer Park in San Jose. They called it La Raza Park.

“We patrolled the police on the Fridays and Saturdays,” Trevino said.

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The Chicanas marched to city hall in protest.

Day in and day out, the fight for justice and equality drove them to protest at school board meetings or at grocery stores, anywhere they felt social injustice was taking place.

“I sacrificed my family,” Silva said. “Two of my sons died. I only had three sons. Two of them died. I neglected them a lot because you have to be ready to go 24 hours.”

The fight for justice also faced another hurdle. The Chicanas were fighting an internal battle.

“The Chicanas experienced sexism within the Chicano organizations here in San Jose,” Regua said. “Even though they were equally committed to the movement, they experienced degradation.”

They did what they had always done. They found a way to overcome, forming their own group called the Mujeres of Aztlan, or women of Aztlan.

They advocated for better streets and sidewalks, for equal treatment in schools, for district elections, and for better health care all while fighting to end oppression and brutality in the community.

“So that we could let the community know, especially the male Latinos know, that we wanted a voice at the table,” Trevino said.

For the iconic civil rights leaders, the Chicano Movement may have ended, but the fight has not. They still sit on community boards, continuing the mission they pioneered decades ago: to ensure justice for all.

The event used to draw hundreds of thousands but this year, it looked a lot different with COVID-19 and security requirements are some of the strictest ever seen. 

Even in their opening presentation, Salesforce made sure the message is clear to the millions watching digitally around the globe – strict COVID rules are in place for the roughly 1,000 people attending Dreamforce in person.

Each attendee had to go through multiple security checks, show vaccination cards and undergo daily COVID-19 testing — four tests in all.

“Indeed, there is a huge change going on,” said Salesforce Chair and CEO Marc Benioff.

In his keynote address, Benioff told employees and clients around the world they’re “trailblazers” in a “trusted enterprise,” and the conference shows a pathway for collaborating successfully and safely moving forward. 

“So, it’s all going to happen here physically, and it’s all going to happen digitally as well – and this is part of the new world we are in and we already know that,” said Benioff.

Attendees said the testing and paperwork are both necessary and acceptable, especially with the delta variant threatening even the vaccinated population.

“I think that is good for everyone as well, because we want to keep secure our entire ohana,” said Rakesh Gupta, automation champion.

Something that attendees are happy with. 

“The good thing is that I feel secure, because all of the people here, everyone’s covid tests are done four times,” said Amit Chaudhayr of Information Services. 

The rules are so strict that even the man who designed the trailhead concept used in the outdoor conference couldn’t get in.

“It’s amazing. I mean, even my boss can’t get in. It all has to do with COVID protocol,” said Tim Mohr, San Francisco creative marketing director. 

He said he completely understands the need for safety with the virus still spreading and he was elated Dreamforce 2021 is still on – albeit with a much smaller crowd.

The conference runs through Thursday afternoon at the Moscone Center.

CVS said it plans to add 25,000 employees nationwide this week to prepare for a potential surge in the demand for COVID booster shots.

In the Bay Area, hospitals are scrambling to get more healthcare workers to help get shots into arms.

More than 1.4 million people ages 12 and older are fully vaccinated in Santa Clara County. Healthcare workers are

The possible spike in the demand for COVID booster shots comes after the FDA advisory committee recommended boosters for people age 65 and older and for those with underlying complications.

“What we are really concerned about in the healthcare field is that we have boosters and then we have the pediatric population being able to be vaccinated,” said Jo Coffaro, Hospital Council of Northern and Central California vice president. “And then we also have flu season happening at the same time. And in addition, we have the fatigue of our healthcare workers.”

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Coffaro said a wave of healthcare workers are burned out and leaving the profession or retiring. And while hospital s are trying to hire traveling nurses to fill spots, that has been a challenge too because many of them are already in demand in other parts of the country where COVID is still overwhelming hospitals.

“Everyone is competing for the same resources,” Coffaro said.

Healthcare workers will also be tasked with giving people flu vaccines — a potentially tall order with people now going back to work and school. Doctors said that process could not be streamlined.

“You can definitely get a flu shot and COVID vaccine at the same time,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UCSF infectious disease specialist. “There should be no confusion. It is very safe and very effective.”

In fact. Chin-Hong said Moderna is even looking at combining the flu and COVID vaccines together in the future.

Newsom had asked people in July to voluntarily cut back their water consumption by 15% to help address a severe drought that has left some of the state’s reservoirs at dangerously low levels.

But in the three weeks after Newsom’s announcement, residents reduced their water consumption just 1.8%, according to new data released Tuesday and reported by the Sacramento Bee.

“On conservation, we’re going to be needing to do more,” board chair Joaquin Esquivel said.

Still, Esquivel was hopeful the state’s conservation numbers will improve. Newsom declared a drought emergency in the Russian River watershed along the state’s north coast in April. Data from that region shows people reduced their water consumption by 17% compared in July compared to 2020.

“We see that it takes time for conservation to boot up,” Esquivel said, adding that the 17% figure “shows the responsiveness of communities” to appeals for conservation.

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Dave Eggerton, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, said the numbers “represent a promising start in reducing water use,” saying water agencies are “ramping up public information campaigns to build on that progress.”

The numbers released Tuesday represent only about three weeks’ worth of data. And Californians are using about 15% less water per capita than they were in 2014.

But this drought has strained water resources like never before. Several of the state’s largest reservoirs are already at record lows. The water level is so low in Lake Oroville that officials had to shutter a hydroelectric power plant for the first time ever.

Still, Newsom has declined to impose mandatory water restrictions. Newsom’s predecessor, former Gov. Jerry Brown, imposed mandatory 25% water restrictions during the previous drought. The Newsom administration has signaled water restrictions could come if the drought persists.

Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth said officials are planning for “a worst-case scenario in terms of water availability” for the state’s three largest reservoirs.

The city debated whether to add more police officers to the dwindling force after the department reported its 100th homicide.

Despite the shortage, some community members insisted this was not the answer to fight crime in the area.

Councilmember Sheng Thao wanted to add two more police academies in order to beef up Oakland Police Department’s staffing numbers and dozens of Oakland residents participated in the meeting to let the council know where they stand. 

“I am calling like many callers to push back against a new police academy. We do not need it. We do not want it,” said Amanda, Oakland resident.

On the other hand, other residents like Paula Hawthorn said they support the addition of police academies.

“We believe this is the only sensible thing to do at this point in order to address where we are with the violence,” she said.

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On Monday, Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong lamented the staffing shortage.

“We’ve lost over 46 officers in the last four months, that is a difficult gap to fill,” he said. “So we need these academies to fill that gap and we need more officers in the ranks.”

Cadets must go through 27 weeks of training and pass several tests in order to become sworn police officers.

“Yeah of course. If it was a good opportunity, I would check it out,” said San Ramon resident Davonne Riddick.

Riddick is 22-years-old and was raised in Oakland. He said if the district voted to approve more police academies, it’s a career choice he would consider.

“It would be interesting to see people like me from the community, maybe, join Oakland police.”

Those against adding more police academies urged the council to look into the recent shooting of Michael Jonathan Cortez, who was shot and killed by a FBI agent in East Oakland last week. The FBI said Cortez was armed at the time.

According to a Go Fund Me page, Cortez was a father of three.

“More cops do not equate to less crime,” said Cat Brooks with the Anti-Police Terror Project.

Riddick thinks the gap between community and police officer should be bridged as, “I think there’s a big gap right now with like, trust and support in the community,” Riddick said.

“So much violence, so many guns, so many senseless lives lost,” Chief Armstrong said in a news conference Monday. “If this is not a calling to everybody in this community that there is a crisis, I don’t know what is.”

The payment is part of a settlement between the university, the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, which conducted a Title IX investigation that found the university failed to adequately respond to reports of sexual harassment and assault that started in 2009, exposing additional student-athletes to harm for over a decade.

Federal investigators also found the university retaliated against two employees, including one who repeatedly alerted school officials about the trainer. Female swimmers said he subjected them to repeated, unwelcome sexual touching of their breasts, groins, buttocks and pubic areas during treatment in the campus training facilities, federal prosecutors said.

“With this agreement, San José State University will provide relief to survivors and transform its Title IX process to ensure accountability in its athletics program and create a safer campus for all its students,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

University officials said they cooperated fully with the investigation by the Department of Justice and that the findings by federal prosecutors are similar to what an external investigation ordered by the university in 2019 and completed earlier this year found about the allegations against former Director of Sports Medicine Scott Shaw.

Both investigations identified 23 student-athletes who were inappropriately touched by Shaw but of those, only 13 have accepted to receive $125,000 each, the university said.

“We thank all the individuals who courageously came forward during the investigations. To the affected student-athletes and their families, we deeply apologize,” university officials said in a statement.

In April, Mary Papazian, president of San Jose State University, said in a campus wide letter to students, faculty and staff members that the external investigation found that the allegations were substantiated and that more recent allegations were raised in the course of the investigation.

Shaw resigned last year after allegations that from 2006 to 2009 he inappropriately touched swimmers during physical therapy resurfaced in the news media. He has denied misconduct, and no criminal charges have been filed against him.

Shaw’s attorney, Lori Jeanne Costanzo, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

As part of the settlement, the university must also implement major reforms to address sexual harassment complaints, bolster its Title IX office, train student-athletes and university employees on giving and receiving consent before medical treatment, prevent retaliation, and provide support to current and former student-athletes who were sexually harassed by the athletic trainer.

The university said it already has restructured its Title IX office, added Title IX experts on gender equity, and launched a new chaperone policy that will give students and staff the right to request a third party be present for any type of sports medicine treatment.

San Jose State said it looked forward to partnering with the Department of Justice to build a stronger Title IX program.

“The health and safety of our campus community remains our top priority,” the university said. “We will continue to learn from the past so we never repeat it.”

SAN JOSE, CALIF. — The first patient to take the stand in trial of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes said that the company’s blood test inaccurately showed she was suffering a miscarriage when in fact she had a healthy pregnancy.

Brittany Gould, who had already miscarried three times testified on Tuesday that in September 2014 she took a Theranos blood-test at a Walgreens store in Arizona after learning that she was pregnant.

After reviewing the results of the Theranos hCG test, which measured a pregnancy hormone, Gould’s nurse practitioner, Audra Zuchman, delivered some alarming news.

“She told me your numbers are falling, unfortunately, and that I was miscarrying,” Gould said, getting emotional on the stand.

Two Theranos hCG blood-tests indicated Gould was miscarrying. However, tests taken two and four days later through a different lab, Quest Diagnostics, confirmed that Gould was still pregnant. She eventually had a healthy baby.

“I remember communicating to Brittany that it was looking as though this was a non-viable pregnancy which would make it her fourth loss,” Zuchman testified, later adding “there isn’t a medical explanation in a pregnancy loss for the value to go from 100 way back into the thousands or to go up at all really.”

After filing a complaint with Theranos, Zuchman said she stopped sending patients there. “I felt very uncertain of the validity of the results and felt uncomfortable as a provider continuing to have my patients use it,” she recalled.

Gould testified that after giving birth, she never used a Theranos product again. “You can’t provide accurate patient care with inaccurate results,” she said.

Holmes is facing a dozen charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with what prosecutors call a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors and patients. She has pleaded not guilty.

The one-time wunderkind of Silicon Valley dropped out of Stanford at 19 years old with the idea of revolutionizing healthcare. With Theranos, she promised to run hundreds of tests with just a finger-prick of blood. In 2015 a series of damning reports by former Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou exposed the blood-testing technology fell short.

Among the government’s next witnesses is Justin Offen, an employee from PricewaterhouseCoopers, who will testify about private text messages between Holmes and Balwani. Prosecutors said they have obtained 12,000 messages between the two but plan to show a small portion to the jury.

Cross examination of former scientist

Earlier in the day, during cross examination of Surekha Gangakhedkar, a longtime senior scientist at Theranos, Holmes’ defense attorneys brought up a September 2013 email that Sunny Balwani, Theranos COO and for a time Holmes’ romantic partner, sent to her team and Holmes.

The email suggested Gangakhedkar’s team wasn’t working hard enough.

“Please note that the software team was here till 3:07am – and is already here now at 10am…” Balwani wrote, adding that the Edison devices were “all sitting idle.”

“In the email he essentially boasts about the oppressive hours his team was working as though that was a badge of honor or something,” said Lance Wade, an attorney for Holmes. “He’s trying to make you feel guilty about the fact that you weren’t working, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” replied Gangakhedkar.

“And he was trying to make your whole team feel guilty,” said Wade.

“Yes” she testified.

“Were you aware that Mr. Balwani criticized Ms. Holmes about that since she was the supervisor?” asked Wade.

It was the first time during witness testimony that Holmes’ attorneys began shifting blame to Balwani.

Gangakhedkar worked in a Theranos lab for eight years and reported directly to Holmes. She quit in 2013 over increasing concerns about the Edison blood-testing technology capabilities. Gangakhedkar testified that she repeatedly flagged the inaccuracy issues and her concerns to Holmes yet the CEO pushed ahead with the rollout in Walgreens stores.

“In research and development sometimes you have to fail before you can succeed, right?” Wade asked.

“Yes,” Gangakhedkar said.

A 2500-square-foot home, engulfed in flames on the 400 block of Ormsby Lane, sent up black smoke seen for miles around. The fire quickly spreading to grass, and then into eucalyptus trees.

“It very quickly went to a three alarm fire.” said firefighters “We knew we had that need because of the winds and the very dry conditions.”

A woman broke out a garden hose to try and stop the spread. She was joined by six fire agencies, while the Sonoma County Office of Emergency Services worked with law enforcement to evacuate 900 homes.

The evacuation order applied to Zone 5K1, which includes the area north of Corona Road, south of Old Redwood Highway, east of Petaluma city limits and west of Adobe Road.

“The sheriff was going up and down the lane with the siren on to start evacuating,” said Lisa Baswell, who lives 1,000 feet from the burning home.

She was shaken by the aircraft dropping flame retardant.

“They kept going flying back and forth and circling,” said Baswell. “It’s just a hop skip and a jump from our house. It was very very scary.”

Neighbor Erica Arent saw flames burning from some of her security cameras.

“We have always appreciated that we’ve been away from the fires here in Petaluma and the Penngrove area,” she said. “So it was a little eye-opening today that we have to be alert and be careful.”

When it was over, Cal Fire crews broke out the chain saws. A total of 10 to 15 acres burned , along with a large house and several out buildings. 

Evacuations were lifted after 3 p.m.

Cash Ebright was body surfing Monday in the area of Laguna Creek State Beach near Davenport, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said. He was last seen wearing black swim trunks.

Monday’s search came up empty. Crews returned to the coastline on Tuesday.

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The new requirement is the first in the nation for an airport, according to Breed’s office.

“We know that vaccines are the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 transmission and reduce hospitalizations and deaths,” Breed said in a statement. “This new requirement supports our aggressive measures to protect the health and safety of our region and our continued economic recovery.”

Airport Director Ivar Satero said, “As SFO prepares for the upcoming holiday travel season, and the return of pre-pandemic passenger levels, we have an obligation to provide a safe airport facility for the traveling public and our on-site employees.”

The new rule applies to all airlines staff, service workers, concession employees, and construction workers. Free vaccines are available to workers at the SFO Medical Clinic.

Some employees could be exempt from the rule for medical or religious reasons. The exempt employees, however, will be required to get tested for COVID-19 weekly.

Failure to comply with the new rules could result in fines, city officials said.