Tag Archives: California

U.S. COVID-19 deaths exceed 180,000, cases continue to fall

By Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) – U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 180,000 on Thursday after a surge of new cases in June and July, many of them in hotspots like California, Florida, and Texas.

There were some signs of an improving outlook. Last week, deaths fell 17% from the prior week and below an average of 1,000 a day for the first time in weeks, according to a Reuters analysis.

However, while U.S. metrics on cases, deaths, hospitalizations and test positivity rates were declining, health experts warned there could be another surge as schools reopen and colder weather forces more gatherings indoors.

This week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said people exposed to COVID-19 but not symptomatic may not need to be tested. This contradicted earlier guidance from the CDC, shocking doctors and politicians and prompting accusations that it may have been based not on sound science but on political pressure from the Trump administration.

The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut slammed the CDC’s move as “reckless” and “not based on science,” and said they will not change testing guidelines in their states.

“CDC and HHS have not shared their scientific rationale for this change in policy, which substitutes sound science-based public health guidance with the president’s misinformation,” they said in a joint statement. “Health experts recommend testing close contacts of individuals with COVID-19 to identify and prevent asymptomatic spread. This type of robust testing by our states has been a key factor in our success so far to flatten the curve in the tri-state area.”

On Wednesday, the top U.S. government infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci told CNN he was having surgery during discussion of the change and expressed worry about the CDC’s move.

U.S. confirmed cases are now over 5.8 million – the highest total in the world. The U.S. death toll is also the world’s highest.

On a per capita basis, the United States ranks 12th in the world for the number of deaths, with 54 deaths per 100,000 people, and tenth in the world for cases, with 1,774 cases per 100,000 residents, according to a Reuters analysis.

U.S. consumer confidence dropped in August to its lowest in more than six years, as households worried about the labor market and incomes, casting doubts on the sustainability of the economy’s recovery from the COVID-19 recession.

The ebb in confidence followed the expiration of a $600 weekly unemployment benefit supplement on July 31.

For weeks, Republicans and Democrats have been deadlocked over the size and shape of a fifth coronavirus-response bill, on top of the approximately $3 trillion already enacted into law.

(Reporting by Lisa Shumaker, additional reporting by Maria Caspani, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and David Gregorio)

In California heatwave, pandemic makes it hard to cool off

By Sharon Bernstein

RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif. (Reuters) – Before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down air-conditioned shopping malls and movie theaters, Debera Diaz and her adult son Joshua could have ducked inside to escape the 109 degree Fahrenheit heat that roasted their town near Sacramento last week.

So the pair, who have been living in Debera’s Honda Civic since her divorce and eviction a few months ago, were grateful to find a cooling center in city hall, complete with masks and a showing of the Meryl Streep movie “The Devil Wears Prada.”

“You can’t even go to the library,” said Diaz, 58. “It was really bad.”

The coronavirus pandemic presents vexing challenges for officials trying to protect residents from extreme weather conditions. Many places people usually go are closed, and public cooling centers like the one in Rancho Cordova can only accept half the normal number of people because of physical distancing requirements. Staying with relatives or friends is also difficult because of health concerns.

At the same time, however, officials worry that fears of catching the virus will keep some vulnerable people from seeking shelter from extreme heat, or even seeking out evacuation centers when wildfire threatens.

Protecting residents from extreme conditions is an issue that increasingly confronts cities and counties across the United States, as storms, heat and wildfire force thousands to seek refuge. Many experts are even more concerned about how to shelter vulnerable residents from extreme cold should the pandemic still be raging in the winter.

“It’s changed how we approach this as a city,” Rancho Cordova Mayor David Sander said of the pandemic. In previous years, churches and nonprofits opened their doors to people seeking shelter, but now many are either closed or unable to help, he said.

The city’s cooling center, set up in a large meeting room, can only accommodate 10 people before workers have to open an adjoining room, Sander said. That is half or less than its usual capacity.

The city is not taking the temperatures of everyone who comes in but asks anyone with a self-reported fever to stay away.

Among those most likely to suffer from extreme weather are people without homes like the Diazes, and the elderly on fixed incomes who might not have air conditioning or, if they do, may feel that they can’t afford to use it, said Mary Jo Flynn-Nevins, the emergency operations coordinator for Sacramento County.

Public agencies opened eight cooling centers in the county during last week’s heatwave, each able to accommodate between 10 and 40 people, she said.

With more than 5,500 people homeless in Sacramento County last year, and around 225,000 elderly, space for residents to shelter from harsh weather can quickly run short, Flynn-Nevins said.

Statewide, cooling centers were opened in 24 of California’s 58 counties, according to the California Department of Emergency Services.

The administration of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom did not respond to requests for comment about the challenges of offering respite from the heat during the pandemic. But the state has encouraged residents to limit their use of electricity to avoid overtaxing the power grid and prompting blackouts.

When the temperature neared 100 Fahrenheit in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles, Magdalay Arriola went to the East Valley Adult Center, where she sat with a water bottle and portable lunch cooler, reading a book.

About 10 people, 6 feet apart and wearing masks, sat in the air-conditioned room. Employees in protective suits cleaned tables and chairs with disinfectant.

“The AC is not working in my house, and I was getting really overheated,” said Arriola, 55. “Hopefully this is safe.”

Her worry that the cooling center may not be safe from COVID-19 is common, said Chad Carter, a spokesman for the Red Cross. People also worry they may spread or contract the virus if they seek shelter with friends or family.

But they also must recognize the dangers of soaring temperatures, which include heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

“Extreme heat is a risk just like COVID-19,” he said. “Extreme heat can be deadly.”

(Additional reporting by Lucy Nicholson; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

California braces for more lightning as wildfires kill 7

By Adrees Latif

AETNA SPRINGS, Calif. (Reuters) – California braced for more lightning storms, which have sparked over 600 wildfires in the past week, but firefighters got some relief as temperatures eased off record highs.

The worst of the blazes, including the second and third largest in California history, burned in the San Francisco Bay Area with roughly 240,000 people under evacuation orders or warnings across the state.

Much of Northern California, including the Sierra Nevada Mountains and coast, was under a “red flag” alert for dry lightning and high winds, but the National Weather Service dropped its warning for the Bay Area.

Close to 300 lightning strikes sparked 10 new fires overnight and more “sleeper fires” were likely burning undiscovered in areas shrouded by dense smoke, Governor Gavin Newsom said.

One huge blaze burned in ancient coastal redwood forests south of San Francisco that have never seen fire due to usually high relative humidity levels, Newsom said.

“We are in a different climate and we are dealing with different climate conditions that are precipitating fires the likes of which we have not seen in modern recorded history,” Newsom told a news briefing.

The wildfires, ignited by over 13,000 lightning strikes from dry thunderstorms across Northern and Central California since Aug. 15, have killed at least seven people and destroyed over 1,200 homes and other structures.

Smoke from wildfires that have burned over 1.2 million acres (485,620 hectares), an area more than three times larger than Los Angeles, has created unhealthy conditions for much of Northern California and drifted as far as Kansas.

The LNU Complex, the second largest wildfire in state history, began as a string of smaller fires in wine country southwest of Sacramento but has merged into a single blaze that has burned around 350,000 acres of Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties.

It was 22% contained as of Monday while to the south the SCU Lightning Complex was nearly as large, at 347,000 acres, and only 10% contained.

“I’m nervous, I don’t want to leave my house, but lives are more important,” Penny Furusho told CBS television affiliate KPIX5 after she was told to evacuate from the south flank of the SCU fire.

Over 14,000 firefighters are on the wildfires, with 91 fire crews traveling from seven states and National Guard troops arriving from four states, Newsom said.

(Reporting by Adrees Latif in Aetna Springs, California; Editing by Tom Brown)

Firefighters, military planes, troops arrive in California to fight massive blazes

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Crews from across the U.S. West, military planes and National Guard troops poured into California on Sunday to join the fight against two dozen major wildfires burning across the state, as officials warned of more dry lightning storms approaching.

The worst of the blazes, including the second and third largest wildfires in recorded California history, were burning in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, where more than 200,000 people have been told to flee their homes.

“Extreme fire behavior with short and long range spotting are continuing to challenge firefighting efforts. Fires continue to make runs in multiple directions and impacting multiple communities,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said of the largest conflagration, the LNU Lightning Complex.

The fires, which were ignited by lightning from dry thunderstorms across Northern and Central California over the past week, have killed at least six people and destroyed some 700 homes and other structures. All told nearly one million acres have been blackened, according to Cal Fire.

Smoke and ash has blanketed much of the northern part of California for days, drifting for miles and visible from several states away.

The LNU Complex, which began as a string of smaller fires that merged into one massive blaze, has burned across roughly 340,000 acres of Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Yolo and Solano counties, Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant said at a news briefing on Sunday.

It is now the second-largest wildfire on record in the state and was only 17% contained as of Sunday afternoon. To the south the SCU Lightning Complex was nearly as large, at 339,000 acres, and only 10% contained, Berlant said.

CREWS ARRIVE FROM OTHER STATES

Outside the Bay Area, the flames were threatening forests near the University of California at Santa Cruz and a wide swath of the area between San Francisco and the state capital of Sacramento.

Reinforcement crews and fire engines have arrived from Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Texas and Utah, with more on the way, Berlant said. Some 200 members of the National Guard had been activated and the U.S. military sent planes, he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday declared the fires a major disaster, freeing up federal funds to help residents and businesses harmed by the fires in seven counties pay for temporary housing and repairs.

Berlant said more dry thunderstorms were forecast through Tuesday and so-called red flag warnings had been issued across much of the northern and central parts of California during a record-breaking heat wave that has baked the state for more than a week, caused by a dome of atmospheric high pressure hovering over the American Southwest.

Meteorologists say that same high-pressure ridge has also been siphoning moisture from remnants of a now-dissipated tropical storm off the coast of Mexico and creating conditions rife for thunderstorms across much of California.

Most of the precipitation from the storms evaporates before reaching the ground, leaving dry lightning strikes that have contributed to a volatile wildfire season.

The American Lung Association has warned that the coronavirus pandemic has heightened the health hazards posed by smoky air and extreme heat. Inhaling smoke and ash can worsen the weakened lungs of people with COVID-19, said Afif El-Hassan, a physician spokesman for the lung association.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

California’s ‘Golden State Killer’ sentenced to life in prison

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – A former California police officer who lived a double life as the “Golden State Killer” was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for a string of 1970’s and ’80s murders and rapes that were solved through the use of public genealogy websites.

A Sacramento County judge granted prosecutors’ request that Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, serve life in prison without the possibility of parole following emotional statements from victims or their family members in open court.

A frail DeAngelo showed no emotion during the nearly two-hour sentencing, held in a makeshift courtroom inside a ballroom at Sacramento State University so that victims and family members could spread out amid the coronavirus pandemic.

When given the opportunity to speak, DeAngelo slowly rose from a wheelchair, took off a mask, looked around at surviving victims and family members of those he murdered and said: “I’ve listened to all your statements. Each one of them. And I’m truly sorry to everyone out there. Thank you, your honor.”

In June, DeAngelo confessed to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges for crimes carried out between 1975 and 1986 as part of a plea deal with prosecutors sparing him from a potential death sentence.

DeAngelo, whom a prosecutor on Friday called a bogeyman who haunted California for decades, also publicly admitted to dozens more rapes for which the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors said he invaded 120 homes across 11 counties during his crime spree.

The identity of the Golden State Killer remained a mystery, his crimes unsolved, for decades until DeAngelo’s arrest in Sacramento County on April 24, 2018.

Investigators tied DeAngelo to the crimes using a then-novel technique of tracing him through family DNA from commercial genealogy websites.

‘NO MERCY’

Prosecutors from counties where he carried out his crimes told Judge Michael Bowman that he deserved no mercy.

“Over four decades – that’s a long time to wait for justice,” said Diana Becton, the Contra Costa County District Attorney, where some of DeAngelo’s crimes occurred.

Bowman said that he had no power to determine what type of prison DeAngelo is sent to.

“But the survivors have spoken clearly – the defendant deserves no mercy,” he said, as those in the courtroom burst into loud applause.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Brad Brooks; Editing by Diane Craft, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)

Uber, Lyft prepare to shut down California rides service on Friday

By Tina Bellon

(Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are preparing to suspend their ride-hailing services in California beginning on Friday morning unless an appeals court rules at the last minute they cannot be forced to treat their drivers as employees, rather than independent contractors.

Lyft in a blog post on Thursday said it would suspend its California operations at midnight.

Uber in a blog post said it would have to temporarily shut down unless the appeals court intervenes.

The companies have sought the intervention of an appeals court to block an injunction order issued by a judge last week. That ruling forced the companies to treat their drivers as employees starting Thursday after midnight, but Uber and Lyft have said it would take them months to implement the mandate.

The appeals court has not yet intervened.

The threat to suspend service in the most populous U.S. state marks an unprecedented escalation in a long-running fight between U.S. regulators, labor groups and gig economy companies that have upended traditional employment models.

California, a state frequently seen as a leader in establishing policies that are later adopted by other states, in January implemented a new law that makes it difficult for gig companies to classify workers as independent contractors.

A judge on Aug. 10 ruled that Uber and Lyft had to comply with the law beginning on Friday, forcing them to treat their ride service drivers as employees entitled to benefits including minimum wage, sick pay and unemployment insurance.

Uber’s fast-growing food delivery business Eats is not impacted by the shutdown, the company has said. Other gig economy companies, including DoorDash and Instacart, will also be able to continue operating under the contractor model.

The shutdown comes at a time when demand for rides has plummeted amid the coronavirus pandemic, with California among the U.S. states with the slowest recovery, according to the companies.

California represents 9% of Uber’s global rides and Eats gross bookings, but a negligible amount of adjusted earnings, Uber said in November. Lyft, which only operates in the U.S. and does not have a food delivery business, last week said California makes up some 16% of total rides.

Uber and Lyft say the vast majority of their drivers do not want to be employees. The companies say their flexible on-demand business model is not compatible with traditional employment law and advocate for what they call a “third way” between employment and contractor status.

Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates are spending more than $110 million to support a November ballot measure in California, Proposition 22, that would enshrine their “third way” proposal and overwrite the state’s gig worker bill.

Labor groups reject the companies’ claims that current employment laws are not compatible with flexible work schedules and argue the companies should play by the same rules as other businesses. They say the companies’ ballot measure would create a new underclass of workers with fewer rights and protections.

An Aug. 9 poll among Californians by Refield & Wilton showed 41% of voters planned to support the companies’ proposal and 26% oppose it, with the remainder still undecided.

(Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Lightning-sparked fires rage across California, tens of thousands flee

By Steven Lam

VACAVILLE, Calif. (Reuters) – A firefighting helicopter pilot was killed in a crash, and scores of homes burned in California on Wednesday as hundreds of lightning-sparked blazes forced tens of thousands of people to flee their dwellings.

Nearly 11,000 lightning strikes were documented during a 72-hour stretch this week in the heaviest spate of thunderstorms to hit California in more than a decade, igniting 367 individual fires. Almost two dozen of them have grown into major conflagrations, authorities said.

Multiple fires raced through hills and mountains adjacent to Northern California’s drought-parched wine country, shutting down Interstate 80 at Fairfield, about 35 miles (56 km) southwest of Sacramento, as flames leapt across the highway, trapping motorists caught in a hectic evacuation.

Police in the nearby town of Vacaville reported that advancing flames had prompted the evacuation of a state prison there and a medical facility for inmates.

Four residents whose communities were overrun by flames hours earlier in the same area suffered burns but survived, though the severity of their injuries was not immediately known, said Will Powers a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

He said thousands of residents were under mandatory evacuation orders in a four-county area stricken by a cluster of nine wind-driven fires collectively dubbed the LNU Complex, triggered by lightning on Monday.

In central California, a helicopter was on a water-dropping mission in Fresno County about 160 miles (258 km) south of San Francisco when it crashed, killing the pilot, a private contractor, CalFire said.

As of Wednesday night, the LNU complex of fires had burned largely unchecked across 124,000 acres (50,000 hectares), with zero containment, destroying at least 105 homes and other structures and leaving another 70 damaged, CalFire said. Several of the fires had merged by nightfall.

Wearing a singed nightgown, Diane Bustos said her husband abandoned their car as it caught fire and then blew up on the west side of Vacaville early Wednesday morning. She lost both her shoes when she and her family ran for their lives.

“I made it, God saved me,” Bustos told television station KPIX.

There were social media accounts of people trapped in the blaze, but CalFire’s Powers said authorities had no reports of anyone missing.

A Reuters reporter saw dozens of burned-out homesteads and houses in the Vacaville-Fairfield area, dead livestock among torched properties and some animals wandering loose.

“We are experiencing fires the like of which we haven’t seen in many, many years,” California Governor Gavin Newsom told a news conference, adding he had requested 375 fire engines from out of state to help.

He declared a statewide fire emergency on Tuesday.

The last time California experienced dry lightning storms of such devastating proportions was in 2008, said CalFire spokesman Scott Maclean.

Fanned by “red-flag” high winds, the fires are racing through vegetation parched by a record-breaking heat wave that began on Friday. Meteorologists have said the extreme heat and lightning storms were both linked to the same atmospheric weather pattern – an enormous high-pressure area hovering over America’s desert Southwest.

The largest group of fires, called the SCU Lightning Complex, had scorched at least 102,000 acres some 20 miles east of Palo Alto, while a third cluster, the CZU August Lightning Complex, grew to more than 10,000 acres and forced evacuations around 13 miles south of Palo Alto.

(Reporting by Steven Lam in Vacaville, Calif.; Additional reporting by Jane Ross and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento. Writing and reporting by Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Stephen Coates, Sandra Maler and Lincoln Feast.)

‘Lightning siege’ sparks wildfires across California wine country

By Steven Lam

VACAVILLE, Calif. (Reuters) – Dozens of lightning-sparked wildfires caused thousands of evacuations in Northern California’s wine country on Wednesday, and Colorado battled its second-largest fire ever as a heat wave supercharged blazes across the U.S. West.

A group of fires in Northern California covering over 46,000 acres (18,615 hectares) has destroyed at least 50 structures in a hill and mountain area near Vacaville in Solano County, authorities said.

The city of 100,000, about 30 miles southwest of Sacramento, was under a partial evacuation order after flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fire raced through homesteads and ranches on its west flank. Social media videos showed a number of houses on fire, and residents were forced to flee their homes during the night.

The blazes follow devastating fires across Northern California in 2017 that killed 44, wiped out numerous wineries and destroyed nearly 9,000 homes and other structures.

“In the last 72 hours we’ve experienced an historic lightning siege with 10,849 strikes causing more than 367 new fires,” said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Lynnette Round.

So-called red flag high winds are fanning flames caused by the lightning in scrub and woodland parched by record-breaking heat and low humidity.

Another group of fires called the SCU Lightning Complex more than doubled in size overnight, and is now burning over 85,000 acres, while the CZU August Lightning Complex has grown to over 10,000 acres and forced evacuations in Santa Cruz County.

Governor Gavin Newsom declared a statewide emergency on Tuesday and California requested 375 fire engines from out of state to fight the blazes.

To the east, at least four large wildfires burned in drought-stricken Colorado. The state’s Pine Gulch Fire grew to over 125,000 acres overnight to become the second largest in Colorado’s history, according to the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center. The fire remains at 7% containment, according to the InciWeb fire data site.

(Reporting by Steven Lam, additional reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Steve Orlofsky and Andrea Ricci)

New global temperature record set in California’s Death Valley

By Jonathan Allen and Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) – The hottest air temperature recorded anywhere on the planet in at least a century, and possibly ever, was reached in Death Valley in California’s Mojave Desert on Sunday afternoon where it soared to 130 Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius).

An automated observation system run by the U.S. National Weather Service at Furnace Creek reported the record at 3:41 p.m. local time.

It was a dry heat: humidity fell to 7%. But it felt “insanely hot” all the same, according to meteorologist Daniel Berc, who is based in the NWS Las Vegas bureau and forecast that the heat wave would continue all week.

“It’s literally like being in an oven,” he said in a telephone interview. “Today is another day we could take another run at 130F.”

A temperature of 134F (56.7C) was recorded in Death Valley in July 1913. Some meteorologists dispute the older record, however, with recent research pointing to the likelihood it was the result of observer error.

“That’s an official record until it’s debunked through the scientific process and accepted by the World Meteorological Organization,” Berc said.

The record comes as climate scientists warn of the dangers of a warming planet. Last month was the world’s third-hottest July on record, and three of the hottest ever Julys all occurred within the last five years.

Sunday’s temperature will undergo a formal review, Berc said. Technicians will check the thermometer out in Furnace Creek is working properly. The NWS will convene a so-called climate extremes committee to ensure there’s no reason to doubt Sunday’s data.

Only a couple of dozen people live in Furnace Creek, but the area is a popular tourist attraction.

Staff and guests at The Oasis hotel nearby were being urged to wear hats and sip water relentlessly while outside, according to general manager John Kukreja.

He tells guests that extreme heat does unexpected things to the body.

“You’re going to sweat and the sweat’s going to dry instantly and you’re never going to know you actually felt hot,” he said. “Your hair stands on end. It’s almost like you feel like you’re cold, like goosebumps.”

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Jonathan Allen in New York; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Chizu Nomiyama and Mark Potter)

New Southern California wildfire expected to linger for days

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Southern California wildfire that engulfed more than 10,000 acres in less than a day was slowed on Thursday by light rains, but is still raging and will remain a formidable threat for several days, firefighters said.

No injuries or deaths have been linked to the Lake Fire, which broke out late on Wednesday in a section of the Angeles National Forest about 60 miles (97 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles, but some evacuations have been ordered, they said.

“This will be a major fire for several days,” U.S. Forest Service regional Fire Chief Robert Garcia told reporters.

“The current weather that we started with this morning has helped buy us some time to get some relief crews out there and start developing some preventive control anchor points,” Garcia said.

Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said the fire destroyed “several structures” of the more than 100 located in the evacuation area in the communities of Palmdale and Castaic.

“Many structures were saved because of the actions of the firefighters last night, who were up all night,” Osby said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, he added.

Officials said an expected return of hot, dry weather later on Thursday, combined with steep terrain in the wooded area, which loaded with dry brush, will continue to hamper the efforts of firefighters.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)