Bay Area

Why is the toll so high when the traffic is light? Roadshow

By CaliNews 22 mins ago

Q: You say that toll lanes are based on the volume of traffic, but I disagree. I commute from Pleasanton to Fairfield and have seen a bunch of Fridays when there’s no traffic on the road, yet the toll doubles or triples all the way up to $10. Volume has nothing to do with it and if it does at certain times, why wouldn’t the toll be less to have people drive in those lanes to keep traffic down in other lanes? This is nothing but bureaucratic thievery. Louie Casterson, Pleasanton Like Mr. Roadshow’s Facebook page for more questions and answers about Bay Area roads, freeways and commuting. A: The next guy agrees with you. Q: It was my understanding that the express lanes would follow a congestion pricing model that would include the option to open the lanes to all drivers (no FasTrak transponder required, no fee) if traffic was moving well enough. However, on at least a half-dozen occasions, I have driven at or above 65 mph in the non-express lane with 10 or more car lengths separation and at the same time,…

Man injured in West Oakland drug-related shooting

By CaliNews 22 mins ago

OAKLAND, CA – December 3: A woman who approached a crime scene saying she heard her husband was shot cries while speaking with officers investigating a shooting at the corner of 23rd Street and San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group) OAKLAND, CA – December 3: Officers investigate a shooting at the corner of 23rd Street and San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group) SoundThe gallery will resume insecondsOAKLAND, CA – December 3: Officers investigate a shooting at the corner of 23rd Street and San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group) OAKLAND, CA – December 3: Officers investigate a shooting at the corner of 23rd Street and San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area News Group) OAKLAND, CA – December 3: Officers investigate a shooting at the corner of 23rd Street and San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. (Dylan Bouscher/Bay Area…

Alameda DA charges two with attempting to murder cops in recent Oakland shooting

By CaliNews 22 mins ago

OAKLAND — Two men in their 20s have been charged with attempting to murder two California Highway Patrol officers in a Tuesday morning shooting that authorities say occurred after the officers attempted to pull over what turned out to be a stolen car on Interstate 580. Humberto Orozco, 23, and Victor Beltran, 25, face charges of attempting to kill CHP officers, gun possession, driving in a stolen car, and assault with a firearm. Court records identify the victims as officers Sean Flannery and Sammantha Thomason. The charges were filed Thursday by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office. The officers were patrolling Interstate 580 near the Edwards Avenue offramp in Oakland when they saw an eastbound Mercedes speed past them at about 1:40 a.m., according to a police probable cause statement. They attempted to pull the car over and followed it onto city streets. That’s when one of the car’s occupants fired an undisclosed number of shots at the police car then sped off as the officers took “evasive action” to avoid the gunfire. Investigators say that Orozco, the alleged driver, passed Beltran a firearm and…

San Jose teen artist wows Kamala Harris, wins national acclaim

By CaliNews 22 mins ago

A San Jose teen artist who recently won raves from Kamala Harris for a portrait he painted of the Vice President-elect, is now earning national acclaim. Tyler Gordon, 14, has been named a Top 5 finalist for Time magazine’s first-ever Kid of the Year honor and will be among the talented youngsters featured in a Nickelodeon television special Friday night. “I feel really grateful that, out of the thousands of kids who were considered, I made it this far.” Gordon said Thursday. “And I’m grateful for my family for helping me along the way.” Time, which has named a Person of the Year for 92 years, decided now was a good time to honor a youth, as well. The magazine partnered with Nickelodeon on a nationwide search to find the “most influential kid of 2020.” The list was winnowed from more than 5,000 young Americans — ages 8 to 16 — to five finalists, who will appear the “Kid of the Year” special (7:30 p.m. Friday, Nickelodeon and TV Land) hosted by Trevor Noah. Tyler Gordon, a big basketball fan, displays one of his pieces.…

New COVID stay-home order expected to hit Bay Area later this month

By CaliNews 22 mins ago

Facing down what he called the “final surge” of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday said he expects to shut down many businesses and further restrict residents’ movements in the COVID-weary Bay Area within the next few weeks. Newsom laid out the strictest widespread shutdown the state has seen since its initial shelter-in-place orders in March, requiring regions to close outdoor restaurant, brewery and winery seating, hair salons and barbershops, playgrounds and other venues if their hospital ICU capacity dips below 15%. PLEASANTON, CA – Dec. 3: Maureen Nokes and her husband Frank Gomez, of Pleasanton, look at the menu at Strizzi’s Restaurant in Pleasanton, Calif., on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new, regional stay-at-home order, which will force additional restrictions in any of the five regions of the state where fewer than 15% of intensive care units remain available. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)SAN JOSE, CA – DEC. 3: Carol Goedde and Jackie Moncreiff enjoy an outdoor lunch at Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant in San Jose, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020. They are not happy with restrictions being placed…

Alison Lurie, novelist who won Pulitzer for ‘Foreign Affairs’, dies at 94

By CaliNews 3 hours ago

By Hillel Italie | Associated Press NEW YORK — Alison Lurie, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist whose satirical and cerebral tales of love and academia included the marital saga “The War Between the Tates” and the comedy of Americans abroad “Foreign Affairs,” died Thursday at age 94. Lurie, a professor emerita at Cornell University, died of natural causes, according to her husband and partner, Edward Hower. Praised by The New York Times as one of the country’s “most able and witty novelists,” Lurie broke through commercially in 1974 with “The War Between the Tates” and received her highest acclaim for “Foreign Affairs,” winner of the 1985 Pulitzer. Set in London, Lurie’s novel was consciously based on old-fashioned narratives of manners and customs, with one character imagining himself trapped in a Henry James story. The protagonists were Corinth University professor Virginia “Vinnie” Martin, an Anglophile and middle-aged scholar of children’s literature so self-contained that her closest companion is an invisible dog, and her wayward young colleague, Fred Turner, who takes up with the impulsive British actress Rosemary Radley as his marriage falls apart back home. “Before he…

Newsom is asking Californians to stay home. After his French Laundry outing, will anyone listen?

By CaliNews 3 hours ago

When Gavin Newsom popped up on computer screens Thursday to inform 40 million Californians they’d soon be subject to yet more coronavirus restrictions, he grappled with a new challenge: Has the governor lost his credibility, right when he needs it most? With California’s hospitals at risk of overflowing, the governor must convince pandemic-weary residents to listen to a leader who was recently caught attending a crowded dinner at one of the state’s swankiest restaurants, undermining the stay-home message he’s been touting for months. And there was no denying that tension Thursday when Newsom unveiled the state’s latest shutdown orders: “This is the time, if there was ever any doubt, to put aside your doubt, to put aside your skepticism, to put aside your cynicism, to put aside your ideology, to put aside any consideration except this: Lives are in the balance. Lives will be lost unless we do more than we’ve ever done.” But this call to action has been muddied by a series of do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do moments from political leaders in recent weeks who have been imploring residents to “meet the moment” and sacrifice.…

Longtime Democratic strategist, former Newsom aide charged with domestic abuse

By CaliNews 3 hours ago

A prominent strategist for the California Democratic Party is facing accusations of domestic abuse that include attempting to injure a 4-year-old girl, authorities said. Nathan Ballard, 51, who was the communications director for Gov. Gavin Newsom when Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco, was charged with willful cruelty to a child creating possible injury or death, and domestic violence, Napa County Asst. District Attorney Paul Gero said. Those charges were filed formally on Thursday afternoon, he said. The charges, first reported by Politico, stem from an Oct. 17 incident at a residence in the 4000 block of Sonoma Highway. The older victim in the case first reported the abuse on Oct. 18. The Napa County Sheriff’s Office arrested Ballard on Oct. 20, two days after an arrest warrant was issued. Sheriff’s Office spokesman Henry Wofford said Ballard was arrested at agency headquarters after arriving with attorney Anthony Brass and refusing to make a statement. “I am confident that my client, Nathan Ballard, will be fully acquitted of these charges after the District Attorney’s Office has a chance to review the facts and learn all…

Victim of San Jose church stabbing warmly remembered; suspect’s arraignment delayed again

By CaliNews 3 hours ago

SAN JOSE — An arraignment was delayed again for the man charged with stabbing five people, killing two, at the downtown San Jose homeless shelter where he stayed and volunteered, as the Grace Baptist Church community fondly remembered one of the victims and continued working to resume their services for unhoused people. Fernando Jesus Lopez, 32, has been charged with two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with a Nov. 22, 2020 mass stabbing at a homeless shelter at Grace Baptist Church in downtown San Jose, a place where he had stayed and volunteered. (San Jose Police Dept.)  Fernando Jesus Lopez, 32, initially refused to be escorted to a San Jose courtroom Thursday, and his arraignment was held over to Monday. Last week, his original arraignment hearing was postponed because of a COVID-19 exposure concern at the Main Jail, according to authorities. He remains in custody without bail. Lopez has been charged with two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder in connection with the Nov. 22 outburst of violence, which caught many at the Grace Baptist shelter…

Ivanka Trump gets some respite on Parler from #IvankaForPrison campaign

By CaliNews 3 hours ago

Ivanka Trump faced a particularly brutal week after it became apparent this week that she could face legal consequences for her actions while working in her father’s business and while helping to plan his 2017 inauguration. The New York Times reported Tuesday that President Donald Trump has talked to his advisers about granting his daughter a preemptive pardon, which to legal experts suggests that the president is worried she could be charged with federal crimes. CNN also reported that Ivanka Trump sat for a deposition on Tuesday as part of a lawsuit by the Washington, D.C., attorney general’s office, alleging that more than $1 million in inaugural funds were misused. The reports prompted the hashtags #LockHerUp and #IvankaForPrison to trend on Twitter. The first daughter has more than 10 million followers on the social media site, but she also has attracted many outspoken critics who tend to overwhelm her posts with accusations that she’s “a grifter,” “complicit,” a “nepotism Barbie” or worse. But since her father lost the election Nov. 3, Ivanka Trump has begun posting on Parler, a pro-Trump social media site. It’s fair…

Map: The five California regions for coronavirus stay-at-home orders

By CaliNews 6 hours ago

Under a plan announced Dec. 3 by Gov. Gavin Newsom, new stay-at-home orders will be imposed for any of five California regions whose intensive care capacity falls below a certain threshold. The five regions and their counties: Northern California | Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Tehama, Trinity Greater Sacramento | Alpine, Amador, Butte, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Sierra, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba Bay Area | Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Monterey, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Sonoma San Joaquin Valley | Calaveras, Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, San Benito, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, Tuolumne Southern California | Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura The order will be triggered if a region has less than 15% of its intensive-care unit beds available. Newsom said the expectation is that the Bay Area will reach that threshold in mid- to late December, and the four other regions in early December, probably this week. The restrictions, to last at least three weeks, will allow some establishments…

Rittenhouse ordered to stand trial for killings

By CaliNews 6 hours ago

By Ray Sanchez and Omar Jimenez | CNN Kyle Rittenhouse was ordered Thursday to stand trial in the fatal shooting of two men and the wounding of another in August during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse appeared in a preliminary hearing via video conference, seated next to his attorney, whose motions to dismiss some of the pending charges against his client were denied by the court. He removed a mask over his nose and mouth at one point in the hearing while seated in his lawyer’s office. Rittenhouse faces charges that he killed Anthony M. Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz during protests that followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha in August. Kenosha County Commissioner Loren Keating, after hearing the testimony of a detective on the case, said the state had presented enough probable cause of felonies committed by the young man for the case to proceed to trial. Rittenhouse will be arraigned January 5 in Kenosha County Circuit Court. The 17-year-old faces two felony charges of homicide in the death of Rosenbaum and Huber, and a felony attempted homicide…

Contra Costa District Attorney charges 9 with May looting in Walnut Creek

By CaliNews 6 hours ago

WALNUT CREEK — Prosecutors in Contra Costa County have filed looting charges against nine people, accusing them of stealing from stores in downtown Walnut Creek last May. In one docket, seven people aged 20 to 30 were charged with one felony count each of looting the Macy’s department store on Broadway Plaza. In another, a 19-year-old man was charged with looting the nearby Victoria’s Secret, and a 38-year-old woman was charged with a misdemeanor count of looting the eyeglasses store Site for Sore Eyes. The charged offenses all occurred on May 31, one of the days that several communities in the Bay Area saw a swath of looting and commercial burglaries in the wake of the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In other parts of the East Bay, some took advantage of law enforcement attention on protests throughout the area, while others were more brazen. The crime of looting during a state of emergency is known as a “wobbler” offense, meaning it can be charged as either a misdemeanor or a felony. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in early…

Watch live: Santa Clara County provides updates on response to coronavirus, Dec. 3

By CaliNews 6 hours ago

Click here if you’re having trouble viewing this video on a mobile device. At 1:15 p.m. Thursday, officials with Santa Clara County will provide updates on the county’s response to coronavirus, including a surge in cases in congregate settings such as homeless shelters and long-term care facilities. Related Articles Kyle Shanahan scoffs at county official Jeff Smith’s pointed criticism of 49ers’ ‘values’ Bay Area high school sports survey: How has COVID-19 affected you or your child? East Bay gyms fined for violating COVID-19 rules Watch live: Newsom provides update on California’s coronavirus response, Dec. 3 Northern California sheriff who refused to enforce Gov. Newsom’s ordered restrictions tests positive for Covid-19

Deebo Samuel held out as 49ers begin practicing in Arizona for Bills’ visit

By CaliNews 6 hours ago

Wide receiver Deebo Samuel, out of precaution rather than an injury setback, is not practicing with the 49ers today as they debut at their relocated headquarters in Glendale, Ariz. Samuel was the 49ers’ offensive catalyst in Sunday’s win at Los Angeles, and, rather than test how his troublesome hamstring is recovering from that return to the lineup, the 49ers opted to rest him and ensure his availability for Monday’s encore against the Buffalo Bills at State Farm Stadium. “No setback. He’s still sore from the game,” coach Kyle Shanahan said. “Especially after traveling yesterday and being on a plane, we don’t want to get him out there with what’s happened to him this year, have him go full speed and risk anything with the hamstring.” Samuel missed four games because of a hamstring he strained in an Oct. 25 win at New England. He returned with a career-high 11 catches for 133 yards in Sunday’s 23-20 upset over the Rams. Also out of Thursday’s practice was cornerback K’Waun Williams (ankle). ADJUSTING TO LOCALE: Linebacker Fred Warner commended the 49ers’ logistics staff — specifically Steve Risser…

U.S. Supreme Court kicks California church’s case on coronavirus rules back to lower court

By CaliNews 9 hours ago

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, Dec. 3, kicked back to a lower court the question of whether a Pasadena-based church’s case can block California’s restrictions on worship services in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The brief order instructs a U.S. District Court to re-consider a previous ruling against Harvest Rock Church in light of a similar case in New York where the Supreme Court barred restrictions on religious services in that state. The Liberty Counsel, which is representing the Pasadena church in the legal battle, described the Supreme Court ruling as a “great relief for churches and places of worship. … “The handwriting is now on the wall,” Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver said in a statement. “The final days of Governor Gavin Newsom’s ‘color-coded edicts’ banning worship are numbered and coming to an end. It is past time to end the unconstitutional restrictions on places of worship.” Harvest Rock – with locations in Pasadena, Santa Ana, Corona and downtown Los Angeles – filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court early last week asking for an injunction that would block state-imposed coronavirus…

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!