Leads:
- Investigators think a machine gun may have sparked the Caldor Fire. Sources tell the Sacramento Bee that investigators are looking into a possible target practice incident. The criminal complaint alleges that 32-year-old Travis Shane Smith and his 66-year-old father, David Scott Smith, converted a firearm into a machine gun and that they possessed a silencer. The two are being held at the El Dorado County Jail, each on on-million-dollars bail. They're scheduled to make their first court appearance through video call today.
- The majority of Sacramento City Unified's students remain unvaccinated against Covid. Less than 40% of SCUSD students have received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine according to the district's "reopening dashboard." Victoria Flores is a director with the district's Student Support and Health Services and says they're at 37% and counting.
- Yolo County is reporting its first case of the omicron variant of COVID-19. According to the Yolo County Department of Public Health on Thursday, a West Sacramento adult got a routine, free coronavirus test at the county's "Healthy Davis Together" testing site. All samples from that testing facility are sent to the UC Davis Genome Center which tests for variants of COVID-19, such as omicron. The patient, who was said to be vaccinated and to have received a booster shot, is now in isolation and contact tracing began after the discovery. He has mild symptoms. Officials said the patient had recently returned to the area after traveling to New York and Maryland.
- There's been significant progress in reducing the cargo processing backlog at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The number of cargo ships anchored off the coast waiting for their turn to unload is now down to 30. The count reached a high of 80 ships last month. Port officials believe the looming threat of fines has prompted shipping companies to move old cargo off the docks quicker. A fine for unmoved cargo was proposed on October 25th, but it's been delayed each week since because shipping companies are complying with the port's orders.
Extra Links:
- In response to government mask mandates, the world's factories produced 52 billion disposable face masks in 2020. It's estimated that 1-point-6-billion of them ended up in our oceans. Mask pollution is equal from 2020 is equal to 7% (or 5,500 tons) of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a mass of plastic debris that floats in the Pacific Ocean...This data has been in part collected by Oceans Asia, marine conservation organization based in Hong-Kong.
- Neil Oliver is a Scottish television presenter and author. He is best known as the presenter of several documentary series on archeology and history, including "A History of Scotland, Vikings, and Coast." But today, he has a stern warning for the world as Germany debates compulsory vaccinations for all citizens.
- California Governor Newsom addresses the 34,000 kids in LAUSD that aren't vaccinated.