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Thursday Midday News Roundup

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The full University of California Board of Regents has voted this morning in favor of a plan that will increase tuition by 5 percent each year for the next five years.

"The fight is not over," protesters chanted following the vote.

Following the 14-7 vote, former state Assembly Speaker and current UC regent John Perez said the vote was unnecessary and undermines the investment in higher education.

Perez said there is no immediate crisis that requires a tuition hike.

"It's really not a good way to move forward," Perez said.

"It's a sad day for education," Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said following the vote.

Prior to the vote, dozens of student protesters gathered outside of the regents' meeting at UC San Francisco's Mission Bay campus this morning for the third and final day of meetings.

Joshua Kang, an 18-year-old freshman student at UC Berkeley studying civil engineering, said he spent Wednesday night with roughly 200 students at UC Berkeley's Wheeler Hall protesting the proposed tuition hike.

Kang, a native of Rancho Palo Verdes, said that while the tuition increase won't impact him directly, he felt it was important to stand up for his fellow students.

He said he knows some students who are working numerous jobs and even sending money back home to family members in need.

In response to Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal Wednesday to cut costs by potentially reducing undergraduate programs from four years to three years, Kang said he already has a very heavy workload and that the curriculum would need to be greatly adjusted.

Kang said he was present outside the Board of Regents meeting Wednesday when a large glass door shattered and a UC Berkeley student was arrested.

Kang said police were on one side of the door and the protesters were on the opposite side trying to enter the building.

Kang said that with police and protesters both putting pressure on opposite sides of the door, the glass was under too much pressure and shattered.

UCSF police Capt. Mike Denson said that the student arrested Wednesday has been identified as 21-year-old Jeff Noven.

Noven, who is enrolled at UC Berkeley and lives on campus, was arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism and inciting a riot, Denson said.

The captain said Noven was one of the students at the front of the group at the door.

Denson said no serious injuries were reported as a result of the incident.





San Francisco business and city leaders are mulling a proposal to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games to San Francisco in 2024.

San Francisco is one of four finalist cities considered for a U.S. bid to host the games.

The U.S. Olympic Committee will decide whether to submit San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston or Washington, D.C., as a possible site for the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee meets in December, according to a group in charge of developing San Francisco's proposal.

The group, headed by San Francisco Giants president and CEO Larry Baer, former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Anne Warner Cribbs and entrepreneur Steve Strandberg, is working on a logistical plan for hosting the games, including necessary infrastructure improvements.

San Francisco's bid is bolstered by recent and planned construction of new sports venues throughout the area, including the newly opened Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, new facilities at University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University and planned new stadiums for the Golden State Warriors and San Jose Earthquakes, organizers said.

The International Olympic Committee will decide on the 2024 site in 2017.

"We believe a San Francisco Bay Area Olympic and Paralympic Games would be an enormous success, and would benefit the region, the nation and the Games themselves, well beyond 2024," Baer said in a statement.

Among the potential benefits, organizers say the Olympics would bring lasting infrastructure improvements and jobs in constructing those improvements.

"Hosting the Games would galvanize the Bay Area around some of our most pressing challenges," Strandberg said. "In preparing for the Olympics, we would pull together to produce thousands of units of new affordable housing, improve our transportation systems, create new jobs and establish new parks and recreational facilities."





Dockworkers have halted work today at the Port of Oakland following the death of a colleague working on a ship docked in Benicia on Wednesday afternoon, a union spokesman said.

Thomas Hoover, 56, apparently collapsed while on the job at the Port of Benicia, International Longshore and Warehouse Union spokesman Craig Merrilees said.

Hoover was rushed from the Port of Benicia by ambulance to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Vallejo, where he later died, Solano County coroner's officials said.

The coroner's office was notified of the death at 4:38 p.m. but no autopsy is planned since it appears Hoover suffered an asthma attack or cardiac arrest and his death was due to natural causes, according to the coroner's office.

Regardless, all worker deaths are treated as workplace fatalities and subject to investigation and workers routinely stop work for 24 hours without pay following an on-the-job fatality, according to Merrilees.

Hoover was a member of ILWU Local 10, Merrilees said.

"Deaths do occur more frequently than anyone would like. This one may or may not be related to safety issues on the job, that won't be known until the investigation is complete," Merrilees said.

Operations at the port are expected to resume Friday morning.





Fairfield police are investigating a fatal crash that occurred early this morning.

Police said a pickup truck struck a parked tractor-trailer in the 5000 block of Fulton Drive. A passerby reported the crash around 5:20 a.m. and the solo occupant of the truck was found dead at the scene, police said.

Fulton Drive is expected to be closed in both directions until midday while police investigate the crash, police said.





The Solano County coroner's office has identified a woman who was struck and killed by a vehicle in Vallejo on Wednesday evening as 60-year-old Pamela Defillipes.

Defillipes, a resident of Corning in Tehama County, was crossing the 4300 block of Sonoma Boulevard around 6 p.m. when she was struck by a southbound vehicle, Vallejo police Officer Shane Bower said.

Defillipes suffered major injuries and was taken to Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m., coroner's Deputy Raymond Lamb said.

The driver remained at the scene and cooperated with the investigation. Drugs and alcohol do not appear to be a factor in the collision, Bower said.





The Sonoma County coroner's office has identified the abalone diver who died on a beach in Sea Ranch on the Sonoma Coast Wednesday afternoon as John Curtis, 54, of Grass Valley.

A male, believed to be Curtis' diving partner, called 911 at 3:08 p.m., Sonoma County sheriff's Sgt. Cecile Focha said.

The Sea Ranch Fire Department responded to the beach at Galleons Reach, a road off of state Highway 1, fire engineer Danell Eshnaur said.

Firefighters lowered themselves with ropes about 40 feet to the beach and brought Curtis' body up to the bluff, Eshnaur said.

Curtis was pronounced dead at the scene.





A Concord man who was apparently not wearing his seatbelt was killed while a pregnant woman survived a two-car crash on Interstate Highway 680 in Pleasant Hill on Wednesday evening, a California Highway Patrol officer said today.

The man killed in the collision has been identified as 55-year-old Manuel Keith Quintero, a Contra Costa County coroner's deputy said.

A preliminary investigation shows that the crash occurred a short time before 7 p.m. as Quintero was driving an Oldsmobile Alero behind a young pregnant woman driving a Ford Escape SUV on the Monument Boulevard off-ramp from northbound Highway 680, CHP Officer John Fransen said.

Fransen said the SUV driver apparently stopped her car for traffic ahead of her and Quintero, unable to stop in time, collided with her car. The force of the crash sent Quintero's car through some bushes and into a pole and the SUV struck another pole, Fransen said.

When emergency responders arrived on scene, Quintero was outside of his car and unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The woman involved in the crash, who was wearing her seatbelt at the time, was taken to a hospital with minor to moderate injuries, Fransen said.

The officer said the preliminary investigation indicates that Quintero wasn't wearing his seatbelt at the time of the crash.

The death came a little over 24 hours after another crash victim not wearing a seatbelt was killed on Interstate Highway 680 near Martinez, Fransen said.

There have been four traffic collision deaths involving drivers or passengers not wearing seatbelts in Contra Costa County in the past several months, the officer said.

"We're really encouraging people to please wear their seatbelts," he said. "We will continue to enforce seatbelt laws, especially during the maximum enforcement period around the Thanksgiving holiday."

Drugs and alcohol do not appear to have been a factor in the collision, which remains under investigation.





A Burlingame construction company has been fined more than $106,000 for safety violations that led to the deaths in May of two Bay Area men working on a new bridge in Winters, the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health announced today.

Cal/OSHA cited Disney Construction Inc. and fined the company $106,110 for using a crane that had not been certified or inspected for defects according to current standards, failing to perform an unmanned trial run and having no qualified signal person assisting with the lifting operation.

The violations led to Marcus Zane Powell, 25, of Los Gatos, and Glenn Hodgson, 49, of Richmond, falling 80 feet to their deaths when they were hoisted by the crane on May 30.

Powell and Hodgson were working on the construction of a new bridge traversing the Putah Creek from Winters in Yolo County to Solano County, according to Cal/OSHA.

Construction crews were using a pile driver crane when a cable broke near the top of the pile driver at about 7 a.m. that day. Powell and Hodgson were raised on a platform 80 feet so they could check the cable, but the rigging on the platform dislodged and they fell to their deaths.

"Specific regulations are in place to operate the cranes safely," Cal/OSHA acting Chief Juliann Sum said. "This incident is a sobering reminder of the tragedies that can occur when safety protocols are not followed."





The California Public Utilities Commission at a meeting in San Francisco today imposed a $1.05 million fine as well as an additional potentially multimillion penalty on PG&E Co. for illegal judge-shopping in a rate case.

The decision authored by Commissioner Carla Peterman said PG&E "severely harmed the integrity of the regulatory process" by sending private emails to two commissioners and a top staff member that sought to influence the selection of an administrative law judge.

In addition to the fine, the decision requires PG&E shareholders to absorb the cost of rate impacts to customers of a five-month delay caused by investigation of the judge-shopping in a case concerning the rates to cover the costs of natural gas transmission and storage.

CPUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said that amount could be up to $400 million. The amount will be determined by the commission in a later decision after the rate-setting case is concluded next year.

Commission rules prohibit utilities from sending private, or ex parte, messages to the commission concerning the selection of administrative law judges.

The back-channel messages were sent by since-fired PG&E vice president for regulatory relations Brian Cherry in January to Commissioners Michael Peevey and Michel Florio and to Peevey's former chief of staff, Carol Brown.

When the messages were revealed on Sept. 15, PG&E fired Cherry and two other executives. Brown was removed as Peevey's top aide but remained employed by the CPUC.

In one message, Cherry referred to a prospective judge and told Peevey, "This is a problem. I hope Carol can fix it."

In another, he complained to Brown that a different prospective judge "screwed us royally" in a previous case.

The fine includes $50,000 for each of 20 violations of the rule barring communications about judge selection, plus $50,000 for the violation of another rule requiring parties to show respect to judges.

The decision also bars PG&E from sending any individual communications to commissioners and their advisors on any aspect of rate-setting proceedings for at least a year.

Only three of the commission's five members -- Peterman, Catherine Sandoval and Michael Picker -- ruled on the sanction.

Both Peevey and Florio have recused themselves from acting on the sanction or on the underlying gas storage and transmission rate case.

The proceeding considered only sanctions against PG&E. The commission rules prohibit messages from utilities to the commission about judge selection, but say nothing about communications in the other direction.

PG&E had no immediate comment on the commission's action. The utility had previously acknowledged the emails were improper, but contended it acted swiftly and decisively after discovering the messages.





Solano County officials will conduct a drill today that involves an emergency response to an infectious and communicable disease.

The drill will give the county's hospitals and emergency first responders a chance to practice and improve their response to care for county residents in a disaster or disease emergency situation.

Beginning this morning, "patients" will appear at the hospitals with an infectious disease, testing the hospitals' policies and procedures to emerging communicable diseases.

The Solano County Public Health Emergency Medical Services Agency participates in a statewide emergency preparedness drill each year and leads efforts at the local level.

Last year's drill focused on an active shooter scenario. This year's drill mirrors the recent response by hospitals in the country to the Ebola virus that has killed more than 5,000 people in West Africa.

The NorthBay Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Solano Medical Center are participating in the emergency response drill.





Santa Cruz High School reopened for classes this morning after school administrators, police and parents met Wednesday night and decided it was safe following an email that threatened a mass shooting and prompted the closure of the campus, a police official said.

Santa Cruz City Schools, the district governing the high school, held a community meeting with police, parents and others at the Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz and discussed a plan for the school to resume operations today, Santa Cruz police Deputy Chief Steve Clark said.

Police have obtained new information and leads that have left detectives confident the case could be solved soon and the sender of the email located, Clark said.

"We felt the threat was not as severe" as initially believed on Wednesday, Clark said.

Officers are following one good lead today in particular after a difficult investigation into the encryption used by the sender to block detection of the source of the email, Clark said.

"We made some really good progress last night," he said.

Police officers were assigned to be present at the school today, Clark said.

At 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, Santa Cruz High School's principal received the email, containing threats that specified the time, place and method of an attack and "indicated an intention to create a mass casualty situation with students and staff at the campus," Clark said.

The principal immediately called Clark at home and police and district officials agreed to close the school campus on Wednesday out of caution while police conducted an investigation.

During a news conference held later on Wednesday, Clark confirmed that the sender of the email threatened a shooting at the school, located at 415 Walnut Ave. in Santa Cruz.

District officials contacted the principals of its other schools and none of them reported receiving any threats, according to district superintendent Kris Munro.





Three people leapt out of a second-floor townhouse window onto a mattress to safety this morning when smoke from a smoldering couch on the first floor reached them upstairs, according to the San Jose Fire Department.

At 7:22 a.m., a resident of the townhome on Palacio Espada Court south of McKee Road told a dispatcher about a fire there and that three people were trapped inside the unit, fire Capt. Brad McGibben said.

Firefighters went into rescue mode upon arrival and, after entering the townhome, found no one inside and a couch that was smoldering and creating a large amount of smoke, McGibben said.

The fire on the couch had nearly gone out on its own and firefighters put some water on it to extinguish it completely, according to McGibben.

The fire crew soon learned that the three people inside the unit, thinking that it was unsafe to go downstairs because of the smoke, opted to leap out of a window upstairs onto a mattress placed by someone on the ground, McGibben said.

"They all jumped from the second-story window prior to our arrival," he said.

A paramedic checked all three and none of them was injured in the jump, he said.

"In the end, it was a pretty minor fire, but the fact that three people had to jump from a window made it a little bit unique," he said.

The people did the right thing to save themselves after seeing the quality of smoke and appreciating the danger of being overcome by smoke if they went downstairs, he said.

A smoldering couch like the one the residents had can produce a lot of smoke, he said.
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