Artists Dismantling Capitalism Moves Online
Cooperation Humboldt and The Ink People have partnered this year to bring you the fourth Artists Dismantling Capitalism Symposium, taking place online from Feb. 26-28. The symposium features 17 sessions covering a variety of topics from theater to music cooperatives to solidarity economics, spirituality and more. It also marks the virtual launch of the public art…
County Confirms 15 New COVID Cases, Adds Vaccination Info to Dashboard
Humboldt County Public Health confirmed 15 new COVID-19 cases today, bringing the county’s cumulative tally to 3,151. The results were released after labs processed 359 samples with a test-positivity rate of 4.2 percent. On its dashboard, the county is now including local vaccination data, indicating that 26,789 doses have been administered to date, with 8.86…
Homeowners Hit By Wildfires Can Apply for Property Tax Deferment
California homeowners in 31 counties, including Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino and Trinity, who were affected by last year’s wildfires have more time to apply for the state’s Property Tax Postponement program. To apply for the 2020-2021 program, the deadline is in June, according to a release from State Controller Betty T. Yee’s office. “Administered by…
No Touching: It’s Seal Pupping Season
The Northcoast Marine Mammal Center, which rescues animals along the coastlines of Humboldt and Del Norte counties, is reminding folks that it’s seal pupping season. That means encounters with a young one alone on the beach are possible — most likely because the mother is out foraging for food in the water — and it’s…
Humboldt Records 33rd COVID-19 Death
Humboldt County Public Health confirmed 12 new COVID-19 cases today and reported the county’s 33rd COVID-related death, of a resident in their 80s. The county also reported a new hospitalization. Today’s cases, reported as the county was moved into the state’s less restrictive red “substantial” risk tier, came after labs processed 126 samples with a…
Humboldt Returns to Red Tier
For the first time since January, Humboldt returned to the red or “substantial” COVID-19 risk zone, meaning some businesses can reopen for indoor service, including restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and places of worship, at reduced capacity. The state data shows the county with a test positive rate of 2.7 percent and a daily case rate…
Who Will Pay for All of California’s Unemployment Fraud?
A 1-year-old in Fresno raking in $167 a week. An ex-state employee stealing $200,000 from California’s unemployment system, some by impersonating Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Another $1.2 million swindled by a rapper who bragged about it on YouTube, $1 billion drained in the name of state prisoners, and $2 billion in jobless benefits siphoned off state-issued…
Public Health Reports 57 New COVID-19 Cases, Two New Hospitalizations
Humboldt County Public Health reported it has confirmed 57 new COVID-19 cases since Friday, as well as two new hospitalizations. With today’s results, which came after 1,046 samples were tested with a test-positivity rate of 5.4 percent, the county has now confirmed a total of 3,124 COVID-19 cases to date. Last week’s case count of…
Up in the Sky: Moon Drifts Through the Winter Circle
Look up in the sky tonight to watch the moon finish sashaying its way across the so-called Winter Circle — a ringed array of six stars — as it heads toward becoming full by Feb. 27. According to NASA, the circle of stars — also called an asterism — includes Aldebaran, Capella, Pollux (and Castor),…
UPDATE: 101 Reopened at Last Chance
UPDATE: U.S. Highway 101 at Last Chance Grade in Del Norte County has reopened to one-way, controlled traffic. Motorist should expected one-hour delays, according to Caltrans. PREVIOUS: The reopening of U.S. Highway 101 at Last Chance Grade just south of Crescent City after being closed for several days, which was slated for 10 a.m. is…
Fortuna Celebrates Black History Month
A couple of dozen people gathered in Fortuna’s Rohner Park yesterday for an afternoon of song, speeches and dancing in celebration of Black History Month. Check out the slideshow below with a few scenes from the day.
Humboldt’s COVID-19 Mutation and What it Means
When Humboldt County Public Health announced Thursday that a new, never-seen-before mutation of the COVID-19 virus had been discovered locally, the news sounded alarming. And it is. But not for the reasons most initially feared. Due to vigilance and some luck, the virus variant’s spread was limited to a single assisted living facility, meaning it…
‘Comida del Pueblo’
Centro del Pueblo is launching a new gardening program this spring that would empower Humboldt County’s Latinx community to learn and share their gardening knowledge says Karina Coronado, a Centro del Pueblo volunteer who is spearheading the program. “Comida del Pueblo” will provide herbs and vegetables for micro-gardening, spaces in community gardens for full gardening…
NCJ Preview: Heartbreak in Loleta, a New Restaurant Model
We’re running through what we know so far about the triple homicide on the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria in Loleta that took the lives of Nikki Dion Metcalf and Margarett Lee Moon, both 40, and Moon’s 16-year-old daughter, Shelly Autumn Mae Moon. This week’s cover story goes into the Humboldt County Sheriffs Department’s response…
KEET-TV Presents Zoom Series: Conversations on Hemingway
Get to know the man, the myth, the legend when filmmakers and special guests explore Ernest Hemingway’s art and legacy in Conversations on Hemingway, a Zoom event series, happening Tuesdays and Thursdays starting Feb. 23 and continuing through March 18. The author is the subject of an upcoming three-part, six-hour documentary series directed by award-…
County Logs Lowest Weekly COVID-19 Case Total in Three Months
Humboldt County Public Health reported 15 new cases today along with an increase in available local intensive care unit capacity as the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized locally decreases. With today’s results, which came after 182 samples were tested with a test-positivity rate of 8.2 percent, the county has now confirmed a total of 3,067…
Check Out Aerial Video of the Last Chance Grade Slide
Caltrans is cautioning that U.S. Highway 101 at Last Chance Grade may remain closed into the weekend due to “today’s unrelenting slide activity and inclement weather conditions.” Slides have also closed State Routes 96 and 169. The county of Del Norte did a flyover the area south of Crescent City and took the video below:
Eureka City Schools to Offer In-Person Classes in March
The Eureka City Schools Board voted last night to open up for in-person instruction by March 1 for pre-school to eighth grade, with families having the option to continue distance learning. Superintendent Fred Van Vleck noted in a Facebook post that the California Department of Public Health does not allow high schools to reopen in…
UPDATE: SR 96 Remains Closed Near Happy Camp as Another Slide Hits 101 at Last Chance, Lines Down on SR169 (with Video)
UPDATE: Caltrans is cautioning that U.S. Highway 101 at Last Chance Grade may not open until the weekend due to inclement weather and continued slide activity, cutting off a main route connecting the northern most reaches of the state to points south just below Crescent City. PREVIOUS: State Route 96 remains closed about 4 miles…
Speakers, Music at HCBMAA’s Liberation March in Old Town
Humboldt County Black Music and Arts Association’s Harambee Liberation Month activities continue this weekend with the Harambee Liberation March on Saturday, Feb. 20 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Old Town Gazebo. Hear guest speakers and singers, including Dej “Heard Today,” Lettie Love and the Love Crew, Lorenza Simmons, Jude Drum and Olivia Dunn. Community participants…
Virtual Bowl For Kids’ Sake 38: Comic Book Bonanza Online Now
Big Brothers Big Sisters of the North Coast’s major fundraiser is not sitting out this year, even if the bowling lanes are closed. Instead, it’s rolling online for Virtual Bowl For Kids’ Sake 38: Comic Book Bonanza — on now through March 6. It’s a month of challenges featuring online bowling, bowling at home, a comic…
EPD Releases Review Board Findings in Police Shooting
The Use of Force/Shooting Review Board called earlier this month by Eureka Police Chief Steve Watson found officers performed properly at the scene of a July police shooting that killed 51-year-old John Karl Sieger. Sieger, a military veteran, was reportedly intoxicated and suicidal when he raised a pistol at officers during a tense standoff at…
Public Health Confirms 19 New Cases as Local ICU Capacity Dips to 10.7%
Humboldt County Public Health reported 19 new COVID-19 cases today, making 70 so far this week, and three new hospitalizations and a further dip in local available intensive care unit capacity. According to the county’s dashboard, 12 local residents are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, including three under intensive care, as local available ICU bed capacity…
Arcata Puts a Lid on Vacation Rentals
The Arcata City Council passed a vacation rental ordinance last night that will cap the units at 100, for now, as well as require owners to obtain permits and provide contact information at the site. After Mayor Sofia Pereira recused herself, the remaining councilmembers voted 4-0 to pass the regulations on short-stay rentals in an…
UPDATE: Traffic Alert: 101 at Last Chance Grade Closed Again, 96 Hit by Slide West of Happy Camp
UPDATE: U.S. Highway 101 reopened at Last Chance Grade with one-hour delays but the situation could change if more slide activity occurs, Caltrans reports. PREVIOUS: U.S. Highway 101 at Last Chance Grade is closed again after another slide hit the stretch located in Del Norte County south of Crescent City and a slide on State…
New COVID-19 Variant Discovered in Deadly Granada Skilled Nursing Outbreak
Public Health reported this morning that a “never-before-seen COVID-19 variant” has been identified in Humboldt County, though “evidence suggests” it was limited to a single outbreak with no indication of broader spread. The variant was found in 16 COVID-19 positive samples from Humboldt County, all of them linked back to the outbreak at Granada Rehabilitation…
‘Overlooked’
Editor: The service HACHR provides seems incredibly inadequate (“Point of Contention,” Feb. 4). I feel a lot more sympathy for the neighbors in close proximity to that organization than the addicts who play by their own rules anyway. It seems more control and responsibility are warranted. I don’t claim to know the ins and outs of how…
Living Tiny in Turbulent Times
Our life is frittered away by detail … Simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau I lived in my first tiny house — so to speak — in the mid-1980s when I was 27. It was in San Francisco, where I was working as a graphic artist, and I was getting tired of rising rents. So…
The Value of a ‘Diversified Education’
Editor: I haven’t learned enough yet to have an opinion on whether pursuing polytechnic status would be a good choice for Humboldt State University (“The Polytechnic Push,” Feb. 11). I do want to contribute this to the conversation: I graduated from HSU in 1988 with a degree in environmental resources engineering and a minor in…
Correction
A story in the Feb. 11, 2021, edition of the North Coast Journal headlined “The Polytechnic Push” inaccurately identified the recently retired California State University chancellor as the system’s leader when Chancellor Joseph Castro took over the position in January. The Journal regrets the error.
Warrior Women (Part 2)
“Their marriage law lays it down, that no girl shall wed until she has killed a man in battle.” — Herodotus, circa 600 B.C., writing about the Sauromatae, mythical descendents of Amazons Herodotus, so-called Father of History, had much to say about Amazons, the legendary race of women warriors who nearly bested Greek soldiers while…
Elegy for Jolie
For twenty foolish years I walked right past them, on my way through the woods to the river, assuming I was seeing all there was to be seen. Then one early spring, in the cool, deep wet of the redwood forest, Jolie came to visit. She opened my eyes to hidden wonder along the trail:…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Atheists like to confront religious people with accusations like this: “If God is so good, why does he allow suffering in the world?” Their simplistic, childish idea of God as some sort of Moral Policeman is ignorant of the lush range of ruminations about the Divine as offered down through the…
Triple Homicide Leaves Loleta ‘Heartbroken’
The 18-year-old Loleta man accused of fatally shooting three people — including a 16-year-old girl — at a home on the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria Reservation the morning of Feb. 10 was known to the victims and a “guest in their house,” Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal told the Journal. Deputies were…
Third Street Refuge
It’s 42 degrees and a bitter, spitty rain is tapping the sidewalks. Trees bend in the wind next to the Humboldt County Library, where a couple sits under a blue tarp draped over two shopping carts. A storm front is moving in, bringing days of cold weather and winds up to 30 miles per hour.…
Night Shift
Since November, when the crew at Chuchi’s Old Town Eats takes off their aprons and heads out at 5 p.m., Seth Pate has been starting his shift. He’s been running New Americana, a separate nighttime delivery restaurant, out of the kitchen where once he cooked for the former Masaki’s Kyoto Restaurant, prepping and cooking its…
Tragedy of the Inside Man
JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH. As the eternal shuffle-step march of our plague years continues, as dates lose significance and shocks remain unsurprising, it can sometimes feel as if nothing is normal but everything is mundane. This paradigm shift — or slide, or decay, whatever one prefers — is not without some benefits. I cannot…
Lagoon Challenge
It was a cotton cloak type of fog, reducing visibility to 30 or 40 feet. Donna and I swam this stretch in bathing suits, “skinning it,” without the protection of wetsuits. Ariana looked at us skeptically as she pulled her well-worn neoprene over her long limbs and we eyed each other warily from 10 feet…
Another Low Return for Klamath Kings in 2020
Following a disappointing 2019 adult fall run on the Klamath, 2020 proved to be only slightly better. Unfortunately, the numbers weren’t enough to get us out of the “overfished” category, and it’s likely we’ll have some severe restrictions both in the ocean and in the Klamath and Trinity rivers in 2021. “Based on this year’s run size, I’d expect very limited…
CRV, the FDA and Inhaling Combustibles
Editor: I also am much bothered by the CRV situation here (“Taxed,” Jan. 28). I’ve contacted CalRecycle and various representatives. The response is to file a complaint about the markets I purchase beverages at so they can be fined for not having a CRV redemption system set up. This is B.S. If anything, the bottlers…
