Free Republic

The discovery prompted health officials to remind people to take biosecurity measuresSan Mateo County confirmed for the first time the presence of bird flu in a backyard poultry flock in San Mateo this week after the owner contacted the state agriculture department’s Sick Bird Hotline. The H5N1 incident was one of 49 backyard flock infections documented across the country — including 38 in California — by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. No human infection has been found in association with the flock, but the county’s health department reminded backyard poultry and livestock owners to take precautions such as handwashing to...

....Andy Ngo: At around 6:05 p.m. PT, @KCBSRadio, a prominent Bay Area radio station, reported live the vehicle descriptions of three alleged undercover @ICEgovERO @ICEgov vehicles in east San Jose, an area with violent Latino migrant gang activity. The information put the law enforcement officers at serious risk while an operation was ongoing targeting violent, criminal foreign nationals....

A once quietly prosperous city in California's bay area has been gripped by a crime wave. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program has named the city of Vallejo, just 30 miles outside San Francisco, as having one of the highest crime rates in the state. The problem has become so bad that frustrated residents have started a petition pleading with Governor Gavin Newsom to increase the police presence in the area. 'As a resident of Vallejo, I am deeply concerned about the safety of my community. Vallejo is currently experiencing an alarming increase in crime rates,' Paula Conley, 55, wrote...

A California judge denied BART’s requests to overturn the verdict, saying the agency failed to show an undue hardship for not granting religious exemption.. A federal judge in California has rejected an effort by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to overturn a jury verdict that awarded $7.8 million to six former employees who were fired for refusing to comply with the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds. In a Dec. 30 order, Judge William A. Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California acknowledged minor “imperfections” in the jury trial—including flawed instructions to the jurors—and...

Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, was wanted in connection with two bombings in the San Francisco area in 2003A fugitive who was on the FBI's most wanted list for more than two decades has been caught in Wales, according to reports. Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, was wanted by the FBI in connection with two bombings in the San Francisco area in 2003. He has been on the run ever since and was put on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list in 2009. According to the Mirror, he was arrested by officers from the UK National Crime Agency in...

Americans are being left outraged as Covid era mask rules appear to be creeping back into daily life. This week a hospital system in Monterey, California, which treats nearly 400,000 patients a year, reinstated its face mask mandate for visitors and patients. Meanwhile several counties in the Bay Area have also brought back mask rules in healthcare facilities ahead of flu season.

At issue is a vaccine mandate for BART workers in San Francisco that was imposed in 2021.. Rail transit officials in California’s Bay Area have been ordered to pay more than $7 million to transit workers who were fired because they refused to get a COVID-19 vaccine years ago. On Oct. 23, a federal jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with six former San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) workers who had refused to get the vaccine for religious purposes. BART was ordered to pay the group more than $7.8 million, with...

Close to a thousand nutria have been hunted down in California this year alone, and wildlife officials are urging people to share reports of the invasive, 2.5-foot-long rodents in the Bay Area as recent sightings caught on camera show they’ve spread to Contra Costa County, posing a risk to a critical watershed. Krysten Kellum, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Bay Delta Region, and Matthew Slattengren, Contra Costa County agriculture commissioner, both confirmed the discovery in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to SFGATE, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are...

Health officials in Contra Costa County are recommending the use of face masks in crowded indoor settings as a summer wave of COVID-19 cases sweeps through the Bay Area. On Tuesday, county health authorities renewed their advice for residents, especially those at high risk of severe illness, to use masks as a protective measure. This recommendation aligns with current state guidelines and San Francisco’s recent advisory that masks remain an effective tool to limit the virus’s spread. Dr. Ori Tzvieli, the Contra Costa County health officer, pointed to the emergence of highly transmissible coronavirus variants, referred to as FLiRT, which...

If you or any of your friends have gotten sick with COVID-19 recently, you’re not the only ones: Case rates are rising in the Bay Area and the proof is in the pipes. According to the California Department of Public Health, the region now has the most viral wastewater than anywhere else in California. In an email to SFGATE, Amanda Bidwell, a wastewater researcher and data analyst at Stanford, said that over the past 21 days “consistently high concentrations” of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected in wastewater samples collected across San Francisco. “Currently we are seeing some of the highest concentrations...

A teacher with the Mill Valley School District was found dead in the water off of Drakes Beach on Point Reyes on Wednesday, just a day after he was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a child, according to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. Darren Smith, 55, was arrested on Tuesday following a report that the school district filed with the Marin County Sheriff's Office on March 28, according to a news release. The Marin Independent Journal reported Thursday that after initially being booked into the Marin County Jail, Smith was released on $200,000 bail. A Google Search preview of...

A Bay Area Elementary School has spent $250,000 on a 'Woke Kindergarten' program only to see its student's literacy and numeracy rates plunge. The 'Woke Kindergarten' program states its mission as an 'abolitionist early learning ecosystem' that trains teachers to uproot white supremacy, disrupt racism and oppression which are barriers to learning. After spending the federal money on the program Glassbrook Elementary in Hayward saw numeracy among its 474 students fall to a new low of just 4 percent and literacy just 12 percent.

As you put away those zombie masks and Halloween decorations, it might be a good time to pull out that box of surgical or KN95 face masks again as respiratory virus season gets underway, especially if you are headed to the doctor’s office soon. In Santa Clara County, everyone — patients, caregivers and healthcare providers — will be required to wear face masks in public patient care areas in hospitals, clinics, and long term care facilities for the “winter respiratory virus period,” starting Nov. 1 and lasting five months through the end of March. Alameda, San Mateo, Contra Costa, and...

MARTINEZ, Calif. - Health officials in several Bay Area counties have issued new mask mandates as COVID-19 cases continued to rise and in preparation for the upcoming respiratory virus season. This week, Contra Costa, Sonoma, and San Mateo counties all issued mask orders for health care personnel in hospitals and other patient care facilities. All three orders were set to go into effect on Nov. 1 and last through April 30. On Tuesday, director of Contra Costa Health Services, Anna Roth, told the county Board of Supervisors that since July, hospitalizations numbers due to COVID-19 have increased from 8.1 per...

A Diablo Valley College faculty member and track coach has been charged with human trafficking, pimping and other charges for making two female victims commit crimes of prostitution, the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office announced Tuesday. Kyle Lee Whitmore, a 39-year-old Crockett resident, was arrested last Thursday after one of the victims reported the case to authorities at DVC, a community college based in Pleasant Hill, prosecutors said. Investigators identified a second victim and Whitmore was taken into custody. He was charged Monday and was set for arraignment Tuesday afternoon in Martinez. Officials at the school and the Contra...

The public reaction against crime has been steadily growing in the Bay Area, with voters last year choosing to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who prioritized reducing incarceration through alternatives to prosecution and sentencing for a wide range of crimes. (The Center Square) - The Oakland chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called upon city leaders to declare a state of emergency on crime, stop defunding the police, and prosecute people who commit serious crimes. In a written, open letter, Cynthia Adams, president of the Oakland branch of the NAACP, and Bishop...

Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted...

If the looting of retailers, hard drugs run rampant and a homeless population growing quicker than the regular one were not enough to make the Bay Area city of Oakland unlivable, add the challenge of so-called “sideshows.” Counter to the the carnival-inspired name sideshows have proven to be a menace to law-abiding citizens. Despite trying, the Oakland Police Department, which endured budget cuts, has not stopped the high-speed hoedowns. These days, sideshows are street spectacles that involve participants suddenly shutting down four-way intersections and even major bridges, and using the expanses of asphalt to put on displays of cars, often...

According to the 2023 edition of Charles Schwab's "Modern Wealth Survey," a net worth of $1.7 million is needed in order to feel "financially comfortable" in San Francisco. In order to feel "wealthy," that number spikes to $4.7 million. The survey was conducted online over a three-week span this year among 750 Bay Area residents aged 21 to 75. According to the survey, 39% of San Franciscans feel "wealthy" today, and 71% are confident about someday reaching their financial goals. The amount San Franciscans needed to feel wealthy is down $400,000 from last year's $5.1 million, but $1.7 million is...

“Tuesday night at the Oakland Coliseum” doesn’t sound like much, not for those who have followed the A’s in recent years. It sounds like the echo of plaintive voices in the gloom of desolation. Not this coming Tuesday night, though. The Oakland Athletics’ “reverse boycott” night could produce some of the most memorable scenes in Bay Area sports history. I didn’t think it was such a brilliant idea at first. The A’s seemed destined to leave town; would they really pack the stadium for a sort of maudlin farewell? It sounded to me like sadness, the kind that has swept...