[aggregation-styles] Sacramento Bee Why did Caltrans bolt hundreds of upside-down traffic cones to the underside of the W-X freeway in downtown Sacramento? The answer is almost as odd as the sight of rows of orange cones clinging like bats to the belly of a concrete bridge. In fact, the whole...
Octopuses Sometimes Punch Fish Out of Spite, Scientists Discover
[aggregation-styles] Live Science Why do octopuses have eight arms? The better to punch fish with, new research reveals. These brainy cephalopods sometimes team up with fish to find food; hunting collaboratively like this allows them to cover more area, and it increases their chances of catching prey. However, when big...
Disney Worker Brags Redlands Relative Helped Her Get COVID-19 Vaccine
[aggregation-styles] Redlands Daily Facts Subscription A 33-year-old woman who reportedly works for Disney bragged in a Facebook post this week that she received the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine reserved for frontline health care workers because of a relative’s connection to Redlands Community Hospital. “When I woke up this morning, I...
No More Peacocks: Alaska Airlines Nixes Emotional Support Animals on Flights
[aggregation-styles] KOMO News Alaska Airlines announced Tuesday it will no longer accept emotional support animals in the passenger cabin on its flights. Beginning Jan. 11, 2021, Alaska will only allow service dogs, which are specially trained to perform tasks for the benefit of a qualified individual with a disability. The...
Small Mom-and-Pop Businesses That Took PPP Loans May Face a Surprise Tax Bomb
[aggregation-styles] CNBC While the federal Covid relief bill addresses a key concern for small businesses with forgivable loans, these firms could still face a tax hit — this time on their state returns. In addition to pledging stimulus checks to American households and providing a $300 boost to unemployment payments,...
Longtime Valley News Reporter Dies at 55 After Contracting COVID
[aggregation-styles] Visalia Times Delta Hard-charging Valley reporter David Castellon, whose journalistic style was often described as a "bull in a china shop," died from a range of health problems, including COVID-19. He was 55. Castellon covered beats including crime, government, business and agriculture for the Visalia Times Delta/Tulare Advance Register...
‘Armed and Dangerous’: Tulare County Detectives Seek 2nd Suspect in Deadly Robbery
[aggregation-styles] Visalia Times Delta A man Tulare County detectives describe as "armed and dangerous" is wanted in connection to a deadly robbery at Waukena Market. Edwin Ibarra, 21, is the second suspect identified in the slaying of Waukena store clerk Carlos Martin on Dec. 14. From the start of the...
Tulare County Sees Record COVID Deaths as Pandemic Shows No Signs of Slowing
[aggregation-styles] Visalia Times Delta Tulare County health officials reported 13 additional COVID-19 related deaths and 1,687 new infections since Dec. 23, the last date the Tulare County Health and Human Service Agency reported new data since the Christmas break. On Dec. 23, the health agency reported a daily record of...
How California Went From a Leader in the COVID Fight to a State in Despair
[aggregation-styles] The Guardian When the coronavirus first hit California, it became the first U.S. state to implement a lockdown. Personal protective gear for medical staff was in short supply and hospitals were scrambling to understand the best practices to treat an illness they had never encountered before, but at least,...
Was 2020 the Worst Year Ever? Historians Take a Look Back
[aggregation-styles] USA Today There are no words. Wretched, vile, appalling don't cover it. Grim, ghastly, abominable are weak. When it comes to the year 2020, the year of COVID, of quarantine, of unemployment, of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, of forest fires and hurricanes and non-stop election madness, of closed...