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    Friday Afternoon News Roundup

    By Jul 26, 2024 - BCN33:FRIDAY AFTERNOON NEWS ROUNDUP,

    1 day ago

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    Contra Costa Health said Friday in a statement that the victim lived in East County. The death was reported to the county on July 16.

    The Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District has detected other recent evidence of the virus' presence in East County. One bird and five sentinel chickens have tested positive for the virus in Oakley.

    Contra Costa Health hasn't determined where the man became infected. To preserve medical privacy, the county health agency said said it won't release further details about the case.

    The county said certain birds can become infected with West Nile virus, and when a mosquito feeds on an infected bird, the mosquito can become infected. An infected mosquito can spread the virus to a human or other animal through a single bite. The infection can be dangerous to humans, with symptoms such as fever, headache, vomiting, or rash.

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    San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson on Friday announced she will retire at the end of August due to "unforeseen medical issues."

    Nicholson, who has spent 30 years with the city's Fire Department, was its first openly LGBT chief when Mayor London Breed chose her in 2019 to take over after the retirement of her predecessor, former chief Joanne Hayes-White.

    "I am proud of the San Francisco Fire Department and the people that work day and night to protect our city and citizens. It has been a great privilege and honor to serve as your Fire Chief for the past 5 years," Nicholson said in a statement.

    Breed said Nicholson "is retiring with a distinguished and decades-long record of public service" and "has shown extraordinary leadership and dedication to our great city and we are indebted to her for her service."

    More details about the chief's medical issues were not released, but she is a breast cancer survivor and has been a proponent of efforts to prevent cancer among firefighters. During her career, Nicholson also suffered second-degree burns from a 2009 arson fire that injured five other firefighters.

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    State Highway 1 along the Devil's Slide area in San Mateo County was closed in both directions late Friday morning following a solo vehicle crash that left two people dead, according to the California Highway Patrol.

    The crash was reported at about 11:40 a.m. after the gray, two-door sedan went off the road and down a cliff south of the Tom Lantos Tunnels.

    Multiple CHP officers, along with other law enforcement agencies and fire crews, were dispatched to the area and closed the road while a Cal Fire team rappelled down to check on the car's occupants, said CHP spokesman Sgt. Caleb Benefiel.

    Both people in the car were pronounced dead at the scene.

    The road was expected to remain closed until at least 1:30 p.m. while a tow truck crew retrieves the car from the cliffside.

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    A former correctional officer at the since-closed federal women's prison in Dublin now faces 15 counts of sexual abuse, including a civil rights violation, after prosecutors this week added two new victims and three new counts to the indictment.

    The initial indictment against Darrell Wayne Smith, now 55 and living in Florida, was filed on April 13, 2023, and charged him with engaging in illegal sexual acts with three female inmates while he was employed at FCI Dublin as a correctional officer.

    The indictment covered 12 alleged acts occurring between May 2019 and May 2021, when Smith allegedly engaged in separate sexual conduct with each of the three inmate victims.

    Thursday's indictment supplants the initial indictment and identifies two additional victims and charges Smith with 15 counts.

    Each additional victim is described as being an inmate at FCI Dublin who suffered abusive sexual conduct by Smith while under his custodial and disciplinary control. Smith's charged sexual conduct is now alleged to have begun as early as August 2016.

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    A body found in Sacramento County earlier this year was confirmed this week to be that of a Stockton man who went missing in 1994, Stockton police said.

    Arnel Nagal Narvaiz was 36 years old at the time when he was last seen on July 1, 1994.

    Police said he was leaving for work on a ranch in the Twin Cities Road area of Sacramento County, but neither he nor his vehicle were located.

    In April of this year, the Stockton Police Department said a vehicle with remains inside had been found and they believed it could possibly be Narvaiz. However, DNA test was needed to positively identify the remains.

    A spokesperson for the Stockton Police Department said Thursday that an autopsy was able to confirm that the body was that of Narvaiz.

    Adventures With Purpose, a professional group of scuba divers who search for missing people and their vehicles in water, posted a live video on YouTube in April after they discovered the vehicle. In the video, the group said they were searching for an Elk Grove man when they found a beige 1988 Toyota Cressida matching the license plate number of Narvaiz's vehicle in a slough 31 feet underwater.

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    Alongside 16 other members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, raised concerns about social media giant Meta's plans to cut CrowdTangle, a service used to monitor trends on Facebook and Instagram.

    The service, the congressmembers said in a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has been crucial for researchers and journalists seeking to expose and understand such phenomena as Russian influence in Africa and the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on mental health.

    While congressmembers said the company deserves credit for its stewardship of the service, they claimed its substitute, the Meta Content Library, limits the access and scope of some information available under CrowdTangle and warrants further development.

    Meta did not state whether it planned to comply with the congressmembers' requests. Though a March statement by the company said the Meta Content Library would be available to members of nonprofit and academic institutions upon application, it did not confirm whether members of the for-profit press could gain access to the service.

    Copyright © 2024 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

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