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California Today
Thursday: The state reached the grim threshold against a backdrop of renewed restrictions. Also: An update from Berkeley; and a remembrance.
By Kellen Browning, Ashley Njoroge and Jill Cowan
Good morning.
(This article is part of the California Today newsletter. Sign up here to receive it by email.)
First, we have a brief update on the pandemic:
California recorded its highest number of new cases on Tuesday, exceeding 10,000 new cases in one day for the first time, according to The New York Times’s database.
New cases lag as an indication of the virus’s spread, and state officials noted that testing had expanded. On Tuesday, the state reported that 118,321 tests were conducted.
Still, the milestone was disheartening for Californians hoping that the surging case numbers might slow as many counties reinstated restrictions and the state ordered businesses to close.
On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the most marked rollback yet of reopening plans. And on Tuesday, state public health officials unveiled new, stricter Covid-19 testing guidelines amid supply shortages and long waits for results.
[Track coronavirus cases by California county.]
Now, here’s an update from Berkeley, by my colleague Kellen Browning:
The Berkeley City Council on Wednesday morning moved forward with a first-in-the-nation plan to prohibit the city’s police officers from conducting traffic stops and instead train unarmed public works officials to pull over drivers.
In a 8-0-1 virtual vote that occurred shortly before 3 a.m., after hours of public comment, the Council directed the city manager to begin studying how to enact a pilot program that would create a department of transportation with civic officials who would stop drivers for violations like failing to pause at a stop sign.
Researchers have found widespread racial bias nationwide in whom police officers pull over, and proponents of Berkeley’s plan say removing armed cops from the mix would de-escalate situations that have too often turned fatal for Black drivers.
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