Major storm soaks Bay Area, swells rivers
SAN FRANCISCO — A steadily drenching rain Monday sent cars skidding, rivers and streams surging and residents packing sandbags up and down already saturated Northern and Central California.
The National Weather Service issued flood warnings throughout the Peninsula, North Bay and the waterlogged northern Central Valley. Officials said residents should be prepared to evacuate.
Santa Cruz County had seen 2.8 inches of rain in 24 hours and could see up to 8 inches before the storm passes today. Marin County got 2.3 inches of rain while close to an inch fell in San Francisco.
Yiannopoulos controversy
Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been disinvited to this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference after his attempt to clarify past comments on relationships between boys and older men fell flat with organizers.
And publisher Simon & Schuster has canceled his book “Dangerous,” which had been scheduled to come out in June.
In the Drunken Peasants podcast, Mr. Yiannopoulos, who is gay, suggests that some boys — teens who are sexually active — should be able to give consent younger than they currently can under the law. In one clip, Mr. Yiannopoulos defends sexual relationships between men and boys as young as 13 years old. He also speaks approvingly of his own sexual relationship with a 29-yearold priest when he was 17.
Mr. Yiannopoulos writes for Breitbart News, considered by many a platform for the so-called “alt-right” movement, an offshoot of conservatism that mixes racism, white nationalism and populism.
Indian Health Service
WASHINGTON — There’s a sliver of good news for a stricken federal agency during the first month of President Donald Trump’s administration: relief from Mr. Trump’s hiring freeze for the Indian Health Service.
“This exemption is a step in the right direction,” seven Democratic senators said in a statement Friday. “Indian Health Services facilities face staff vacancy rates of 20 percent or higher, and a hiring freeze would make these challenges even more severe, further impacting access to health care and even patient health.”
Unfortunately, that step won’t necessarily improve the agency, but perhaps it will prevent it from getting even worse. The hardships for IHS and other Native American programs are already so severe that the Government Accountability Office added them to its “high-risk list” last week.
That bureaucratically bland language points to more dramatic, serious complications. The long-troubled medical system serves a population with severe afflictions — including a significantly lower life expectancy rate and drastically higher death, infant mortality and disease rates than for white people.
Hitler’s phone auctioned
A telephone used by Adolf Hitler exchanged hands again Sunday afternoon when it was auctioned off for $243,000, said Bill Panagopulos, president of Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City, Md.
Mr. Panagopulos said the auction house does not reveal the name of buyers, but he described the buyer as an American from the East Coast who made the purchase via phone.
Also in the nation...
Police say four teenagers were injured by gunfire in west Philadelphia.