State

SAN FRANCISCO—The Yosemite Slough, a polluted and muddy strip of land, is schedule to be cleaned and restored in the Bayview District. A restoration plan was proposed in 2012. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formalized their efforts in 2014. The EPA’s Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld explained the agency would be pursuing money from companies who were responsible for the contamination at...

CALIFORNIA— Four men were sentenced on Friday, July 24 for their involvement in a large-scale scheme where homeless individuals on Skid Row were bribed in exchange for forged signatures on ballot petitions and voter registration forms, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Richard Howard, 64, and Louis Thomas Wise, 37, both pleaded no contest to falsifying names...

SAN FRANCISCO—Recology, Inc. may replace Waste Management of Alameda County, Inc. as the city's official garbage collector, despite opposition. The director of San Francisco's Department of the Environment (DOE) signed a 9-year contract with Ecology, a San Francisco-based company. According to the contract, the city's garbage will now be dumped in Hay Road Landfill near Vacaville in Solano County, about 50 miles...

CALIFORNIA—The United States Department of Justice announced on Friday, March 19 that Chu-Chiang Ho, 44, has been sentenced by a United States District Court for 18 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $1.7 million for illegally smuggling automobile headlights from China that he knew did not meet the safety requirements. Ho, also known as Kevin Ho, admitted that he...

SAN FRANCISCO—A network of utility wires large enough to wrap around the planet more than six times has become a problem in the state of California. For the past 50 years, California has made an effort to line utility wires underground. The network, spanning 152,000 miles overhead, has proved difficult to bury. Utility consumers currently pay an estimated price of $1...

LOS ANGELES—The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health released guidelines for Halloween on September 5, which bans door-to-door trick-or-treating, carnivals, and parties under the COVID-19 pandemic. They stated that traditional ways for celebrating Halloween including trick-or-treating, parties and carnivals might increase non-essential contacts with people outside the house, so they should understand manners and prepare safer alternatives well before...

EAST BAY—A group of Muslim men reported they were attacked while they were visiting Lake Chabot Regional Park for prayer in the East Bay on Sunday, December 6. The incident was recorded by Rasheed Albeshari, one of the victims, who said a woman identified as Denise Slader, approached the men and abruptly asked them if they believed in Jesus. The...

PALO ALTO—A visiting researcher at Stanford University was accused of being an active member with the Chinese military, and has been charged with visa fraud, according to a complaint released by federal prosecutors.  The suspect is named as Chinese national Song Chen, 38, who came to the United States in December 2018 with a J-1 non-immigrant visa. Her application stated...

CALIFORNIA—Wing Wo Ma, also known as Fat Mark, was sentenced to a life sentence on August 5 for a murder he committed in 2013. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, a federal jury in San Francisco convicted Wing Wo Ma of murder, drug distribution conspiracy, weapons, and bribery charges in November 2019, after a three-week trial. Ma shot and killed Jim...

CALIFORNIA—The Office of the California Secretary of State revealed on Tuesday, April 26 that the Recall Gavin Newsom campaign reached enough signatures for a recall election against Governor Gavin Newsom. The CA Secretary of State's office states on its website that "the requisite number of valid signatures has been reported to our office to initiate the recall of" Newsom and...