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Jetsons-style robots are invading hospitals B6
49ers are doing a lot of things well during this eight-game winning streak B1
MONDAY | December 26, 2022 | $1.00
DAILYREPUBLIC.COM | Well said. Well read.
Post-Christmas storm to soak Bay Area, drop snow on Sierras Eliyahu K amisher BAY AREA NEWS GROUP
Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic photos
Michelle Valine stands with her horse, Newman, on her property along Russell Road in Fairfield, Dec. 12. Governmental agencies are considering taking land
from Valine’s three-generation family property to build on and develop the new westbound Interstate 80 CHP truck scales.
Three-generation family land is site for new I-80 truck scale Todd R. Hansen
THANSEN@DAILYREPUBLIC.NET
FAIRFIELD — Michelle Valine has watched, over the years, pieces of her family’s homestead chipped away and divided for “the greater public interest.” Long before she was even born, the government came in and paid her grandfather $10 for an easement for a ramp expansion of what was Michelle Valine holds a photograph of her father, Vincent, then Highway 40. near the site of an old gas station on her property along Then Interstate Russell Road in Fairfield, Dec. 12. 80 bisected the property, leaving 11 acres no longer with the family, on production. Valine won and what we settled on one side of the thorough- that contested negotiation was something quite diffare and 70-plus on the for the parkway ease- ferent,” she said, adding, ment in court. however, that there was other side. “You don’t get the never a question that the The Suisun Parkway option of not wanting project would happen. split that larger section into pieces of 28 acres to sell. So we went to “Let me put it this way, and 42 acres – 35 of court for the value and the roadway was already started before the lawsuit the latter now leased to damages,” Valine said. Caymus for winegrape “What they offered was even settled.”
Now the state is eyeing the central piece of the ranch – the 28 acres along Russell Road, between Interstate 80 and Suisun Valley Parkway – for the new westbound I-80 truck scales. Valine has long accepted that the day would come that she would have to negotiate a deal for the property, but she does not really want to sell, and so the government may have to take it. “I think our preference is to work out an agreement with the property owner,” said Daryl Halls, the executive director of the Solano Transportation Authority. Valine expects to meet with representatives from STA sometime next year to begin talks. “This has always been See Land, Page A7
Asylum seekers hoping Title 42 lifted Leila Miller
LOS ANGELES TIMES
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — The first time Mari Marin Bastidas tried to claim asylum at the U.S. border, she was turned away by authorities who said a policy instituted to slow the spread of Covid-19 meant her case would not even get a hearing. Dejected, she returned to her home in the state of Michoacán in western Mexico. Two years later, she is back at the border to try again. Word has been
spreading that the policy – known as Title 42 – is about to be lifted. “I decided to come because of the opportunity that is opening up,” said Bastidas, 29. “I’m not going back anymore.” The fate of the policy now rests with the U.S. Supreme Court as anxiety and confusion build on both sides of the border. In Ciudad Juarez, untold numbers of asylum seekers have been gathering in recent weeks. Across the Rio Grande in El Paso, the mayor has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of a massive influx.
Bastidas, along with her 8-yearold daughter and two brothers, were among scores of migrants waiting along a narrow section of the river. Some waded across to present themselves to border agents, either not realizing that Title 42 was still in effect or willing to take their chances anyway. Bastidas and her family decided to wait and made their way to a migrant shelter nearby. They had $500 to carry them over for now.
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See Asylum, Page A7
The Bay Area’s Christmas weekend is coming to a climactic end, just in time to deflate Santa. On Monday night through Tuesday, a powerful storm heading from Guam in the western Pacific Ocean will drench the region and shake loose holiday decorations with blustery winds reaching up to 50 miles per hour in some spots. The downpour is forecast to start Monday evening in the North Bay and progress southward overnight. Rainfall is expected to ease up by Tuesday afternoon after soaking the coastal mountain ranges in the Sonoma and Santa Cruz areas with up to five inches of rain. Lower regions in San Jose, San Francisco, and the East Bay will see one to two inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service. The other big attrac-
See Storm, Page A7
Shae Hammond/Bay Area News Group/TNS file
Santa Claus walks in the rain at Christmas in the Park at Plaza de Cesar Chavez in San Jose, Dec. 8.
China stops daily Covid data release Bloomberg News China’s National Health Commission will stop publishing daily Covid-19 case numbers, after the accuracy of its data was questioned as millions were infected nationwide and the official tally remained strikingly low. The commission didn’t provide a reason for the change in policy in a statement on Sunday, but said that the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention will release Covid-related information
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tion: howling winds. “We can expect wind gusts, especially on the coast and the coastal ranges,” said Brian Garcia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay Area office. “It will definitely be breezy enough to blow around those inflatable Santas in people’s yards.” After the initial storm system, the Bay Area will remain damp into New Year’s eve as an “unsettled” weather pattern brings scattered daily showers nearly every day. “Models are suggesting that the next break from rain will not be until after most people have stopped singing Auld Lang Syne,” the weather service said in a Sunday morning update, referring to the 18th-century Scottish melody often sung at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31. The weather pattern,
for studies and reference. Some Chinese cities have reported daily infections that far surpassed the official tally, adding to doubt of the numbers provided by the NHC. As many as 248 million people, or nearly 18% of the population, likely contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December, according to minutes from an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission held on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported. Hospitals See China, Page A7
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