A reporter gets out of a Cruise driverless taxi after a test ride in San Francisco this year. (Terry Chea / Associated Press)

In the wake of California withdrawing Cruise’s permit to operate self-driving cars in the state, the company announced that it’s suspending all U.S. robotaxi operations.

The move comes after the California Department of Motor Vehicles alleged that Cruise withheld from regulators video footage of a Cruise robotaxi dragging a person down a city street.

The future for the company is uncertain. Its parent company, General Motors, has lost $1.9 billion on Cruise so far this year, including a $732-million loss in the third quarter, according to its latest earnings report. Competitor Ford shut down its Argo robotaxi unit in 2022, concluding that the possibility of far-off profits weren’t worth the enormous cash drain.

The California DMV gave two reasons for suspending Cruise’s license this week: concerns about safety and claims that the company withheld from regulators video footage that showed a Cruise robotaxi drag an already injured woman 20 feet across street pavement before emergency workers could reach her.

Read more: California DMV pulls permits for Cruise’s driverless cars over safety concerns

“The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust,” Cruise said in a statement online Thursday night. “Part of this involves taking a hard look inwards and at how we do work at Cruise.”

Cruise vehicles with humans behind the wheel will continue to operate. Until this week, the company had been operating driverless services in San Francisco, Phoenix, Miami, Houston and Austin, Texas.

Cruise needs to be “extra vigilant when it comes to risk, relentlessly focused on safety” as it rebuilds public trust, a spokeswoman told The Times.

(1/3) The most important thing for us right now is to take steps to rebuild public trust. Part of this involves taking a hard look inwards and at how we do work at Cruise, even if it means doing things that are uncomfortable or difficult.

— cruise (@Cruise) October 27, 2023

The incident marks a dark chapter in the emerging history of the automated vehicle industry. Whether Cruise’s actions will harm the industry’s reputation, or only its own, remains to be seen.

Story continues

Robotaxi companies claim that autonomous vehicles are already safer than cars driven by humans. Officials in San Francisco say they’re having trouble getting these companies to provide adequate data to prove that. But Cruise is dealing with more than safety in this case — it’s dealing with allegations that it misled regulators and the media in ways that might erode public trust.

On Oct. 2, a car with a human behind the wheel hit a woman who was crossing at the intersection of 5th and Market streets in San Francisco against a red light. The pedestrian slid over the hood and into the path of a Cruise robotaxi, with no human driver. She became pinned under the car, and was later taken to a hospital.

Cruise quickly called the crash tragic but said that the robotaxi stopped as it was supposed to and that a human driver couldn’t have reacted as quickly.

Read more: A Cruise car hit a pedestrian. The company’s response could set back California’s new robotaxi industry

What Cruise did not say, and what the DMV revealed Tuesday, is that after sitting still for an unspecified period of time, the robotaxi began moving forward at about 7 mph, dragging the woman with it for 20 feet.

Cruise had shown a video of the incident to reporters but barred them from posting it publicly. (Because of that restriction, The Times turned down Cruise’s offer.) The video shown to reporters ended with the robotaxi sitting motionless, but did not include the vehicle dragging the woman.

The DMV said Cruise showed it the same abbreviated video, and only later did the agency see the full version. The two sides are fighting about that version of events. Cruise told reporters it showed the DMV the full video from the start.

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the DMV said it stands by the facts outlined in the orders of suspension.

Cruise Chief Executive Kyle Vogt (Kimberly White / Getty Images for TechCrunch)

Controversy has surrounded the company for months, after San Francisco’s fire chief lit into Cruise and another robotaxi company, Waymo, for interfering with firetrucks and emergency workers. Police said robotaxis were getting in their way too.

Dozens of such incidents have been reported, including robotaxis blocking an ambulance from exiting a firehouse, driving onto fire hoses and parking themselves there, bursting through police tape and getting tangled in downed utility wires. Cruise robotaxis sometimes gather together up to a dozen at a time to block pedestrians and other cars at busy intersections, a phenomenon whose cause remains a mystery, at least to the public.

Nonetheless, the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates taxi fares, voted to allow a massive expansion of robotaxi service across San Francisco. Cruise Chief Executive Kyle Vogt soon started talking about big plans for explosive growth, including the introduction next year of a six-passenger pod-like vehicle with no steering wheel called the Origin. “The goal is to get to scale as quickly as we can in terms of the total number of AVs to make this business profitable and sustainable,” he said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in September.

Read more: After disturbing week for Cruise robotaxis, state applies the brakes

Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, is also planning to grow its fleets and move into new cities. It has already launched in Santa Monica and will soon expand to Los Angeles. Los Angeles officials are trying to get a close look at company plans, but are stymied by state law that gives cities little authority over robotaxi operations.

Other robotaxi companies are also gearing up to expand, including Zoox and Motional. Those companies are likely to draw more scrutiny in the wake of Cruise’s setback, said Bryant Walker Smith, an automated vehicle law expert at the University of South Carolina.

Alain Kornhauser, who heads the autonomous vehicle engineering program at Princeton, said the dragging incident is indeed tragic but it’s something that can be fixed. “The problem is, I don’t think anybody who’s writing code thought about a person being trapped under the car,” he said. “Now they can do something like mount a camera to make sure there’s no one under the car before it moves.”

People will be forgiving of odd robotaxi behavior if they trust the companies involved, he said. “But this covering-up business and not being forthright” does long-term damage to public acceptance, he said. “Didn’t we learn from Watergate that the coverup can be worse than the crime? They could be apologetic. They could say, ‘We’re not going to do that again.'”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Zeke Fraser has a lot on his desk, both figuratively and literally. He briefly stepped away from his paperwork-lined desk at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds late Wednesday morning for a quick chat about the upcoming fair, which opens on Wednesday.

Vendors and performers were arriving, and workers were bustling about in equipment-laden golf carts as tents and food booths were being assembled. 

This frenetic bustle is typical in the lead-up to the event, which draws thousands of people to the Watsonville venue.

Fraser was hired as CEO in June, and says that everything is on track.

“The biggest thing we want people to know is that we are here and we are ready to do the fair,” he said.

Fraser says that visitors will see beloved favorites such as the All Alaskan Racing Pigs, the cinnamon roll booth and camel rides.

New this year is an exotic bird show featuring condors with 10-foot wingspans, colorful macaws, hornbills and cranes. Also new is “Cartoon Poodles,” a show featuring 11 pink-dyed poodles trained to jump, dance and otherwise clown around for their audience.

“It’s a complete 20-minute show,” says Isabel Abuhadba, whose family has been doing the performances for six generations, including casinos in Las Vegas and in numerous countries. “It’s wonderful when we present the show and hear the audience cheering.”

Throughout the fairgrounds, preparations are underway, with art being hung for display and people setting up their entries.

One of these was Jackie Cameron, who last year, after a lifetime of attending the fair—and telling herself she would enter the garden competition she loved to see—took the plunge, designing her own garden in the adult category.

“I thought, you know what? I’m 52 and I’m going to do a gosh darn garden,” she said. 

Her entry earned her a best-in-show ribbon, and now she is hoping to repeat that victory in this year’s fair.

On Wednesday, she was the first gardener working on this year’s entry, which she has titled “Color Wheel.”

Visitors to the Home Arts display in the J.J. Crosetti Hall can feast their eyes on dozens of different genres, from knotting to sewing to jewelry to quilts.

Two of the latter deserve a second glance: one is a quilt made by a 7-year-old girl—her first foray into the art. This just around the corner from a masterpiece by veteran quilter Thom Adkins. 

The complexity of the latter clearly sets it apart from that of the works surrounding it. But the work of the young girl and the experienced artist represents one of the overarching missions of the display: inspiring young people to take up and carry on a time-honored tradition, says volunteer Mary Travis.

“When you can get the youth interested, it’s amazing,” she said.  

In the Fine Arts Building, Donna Giubbini, who heads up the art exhibit for the fair, said a new category will highlight professional commercial illustration. Works include locally produced posters, business signs and banners.

“We wanted to make room for this category because there is so much talent in this kind of illustration,” Giubbini said.

Also in Fine Arts, metal sculptor Pierre Riche is showing a metal sculpture from his “Golden Possibilities” series. He says the five-foot-tall equine sculpture is a result of more than two decades of working his craft, which has included making miniature horses from recycled metal to towering outdoor pieces constructed from laser-cut plate steel. 

He says his work has been featured in venues in Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as in Spain and France.

Moving forward 

Fraser took the reins as CEO in the wake of the termination of former CEO Dave Kegebein. The Fair Board alleged that many expenditures on a state-issued credit card were for unauthorized purchases, including gasoline for his truck.

Kegebein said that all his purchases were for work related to the fair, and paid back $30,000 to the Fairgrounds.

The move angered many community members, who criticized the board for, among other things, not giving Kegebein a chance to ameliorate the situation.

Fraser, who had no involvement in the termination or in the subsequent approval of three interim CEOs, says he wants to focus on this fair, and on those in the future.

“It’s in the past,” he said. “I’d love to leave it in the past and move forward. Everyone’s come together to get this fair done, and hopefully it will help us as a community to heal, that’s my hope.”

Santa Cruz County Fair Board Chair Michael Pruger agrees.

“It’s been a tough year for the fair,” he said. “However I think we’ve gotten past our roughest patch, we’ve hired a great new CEO and we believe we are going to be able to provide a great fair for years to come.”

Pruger also tipped his hat to the people who help out every year to help keep the fair going and the fairgrounds running. 

“If it wasn’t for the great volunteers that come out every single year we would be in trouble,” he said. “We appreciate their commitment to the fair. We have had nothing but great turnout again, the fairgrounds are in beautiful condition.”

The Santa Cruz County Fair runs from Sept. 13-17.

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SOMERS — School officials have reported a preliminary estimate of $10.5 million for an upgrade to the elementary school’s heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system and are heeding advice by the Board of Finance to clarify the proposed project’s scope so residents will understand its necessity and possible impact on taxes.

Superintendent Sam Galloway and school business manager Stephanie Levin attended a Board of Finance meeting on Tuesday where they said the project has been isolated to just the elementary school, which they hope to put before voters in the November election.

The town plans to seek state funding for the proposed project through the HVAC Indoor Air Quality Grants Program for Public Schools, a program established by Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration through the state Department of Administrative Services.

Somers, along with a number of other districts across the state, did not receive grant funds for HVAC projects during the first round of applications. State officials say they plan to launch a process in the coming months for districts to apply for school air quality improvement grants again, while lawmakers recently approved $300 million more in funding for the program.

It’s essential that the town have community support before seeking grant funds, Board of Finance members and finance officials said at the meeting. Therefore, they said that the school administration needs to explain to residents what the project will entail and why it’s necessary.

The state won’t give communities a guarantee on grants until they have local support, Chief Financial Officer Brian Wissinger said. He pointed out that Ellington, which received $6.7 million in grant funds for HVAC work at three schools, held a referendum on bonding the projects well before submitting its application to the state, with 75% of voters in support.

“No one will think the town is serious about this without a referendum,” Assistant Treasurer Michael Marinaccio said. “If you want to get into the game, you need an appropriation on the table that will pass.”

He said the town plans to have two questions on the ballot asking voters if they would approve going to bond for the HVAC project as well as a proposed new community/senior center.

The two projects combined could come to a cost of at least $20 million, Marinaccio said, but that does not mean the town would be bonding that amount.

“If we pursue the various funding opportunities out there, that $20 million could lower itself to $8 million to bond,” he said, adding the town has estimates on the cost for the two projects but won’t know the true cost until going out to bid.

Somers will hold a special town meeting before the November election where officials will present information on the proposed senior/community center and HVAC project. Board of Finance members advised Galloway to have sufficient information by then to present to residents.

They suggested explaining that the elementary school, which was formerly the town’s high school, has attributes a community couldn’t get today in a new building and that construction schedules could be flexible, with one project possibly starting before the other.

Board of Finance member Ralph Williams said the best way to allay a lot of residents’ concerns about how projects would impact the tax rate is by providing predictability. He advised showing how figures will stay constant for the projects even under a “highball” figure.

“The default fear is that the mill rate will go up for the life of these projects,” said Marinaccio. “Our debt service (on other, older projects) will be going down like a ski slope in Switzerland.” 

Marinaccio said he can’t imagine the tax rate would go up more than three-quarters of a mill.

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in summary

San Quentin was home to California’s death row for decades. Now Governor Newsom wants the San Francisco Bay Area Prison to focus on rehabilitation and helping inmates re-enter society.

Read this article in Spanish.

California’s best-known prison is being reorganized into a rehabilitation center under a plan the governor announced Friday — a move hailed as revolutionary by some prison reform advocates but derided by prison abolitionists as mere window dressing, rather than the more dramatic changes the you want to.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will spend $20 million to begin restructuring San Quentin State Prison from a facility housing 3,300 inmates in a high-security San Francisco Bay Area location to a “center for innovation focused on… Education, rehabilitation and breaking the cycle of crime.”

What that will look like in the end remains unclear for the time being. The new facility will be designed by an advisory committee made up of crime victims, ex-prisoners and academics, according to Newsom’s office. The democratically controlled legislature must also approve funding for the rehabilitation plan.

“This is certainly new and bold and ambitious, and I’m pleased to see it as a step in the right direction,” said Sharon Dolovich, UCLA law professor and director of the Prison Law and Policy Program.

“Sometimes it slips between cup and lip, so who knows how it will turn out. But the idea is right.”

Newsom’s office has not provided a final cost estimate for the facility’s restructuring. Since taking office in 2019, he has marked four other state prisons for closure, a trend made possible by the declining inmate population at state prisons in California.

He said the increased emphasis on rehabilitation would better prepare inmates to rejoin their communities.

“We are here to do more and get better, to reconcile and to face the hard realities. We are as stupid as we want to be,” he said in a statement in prison. “Two-thirds of the people who get out of prison every year within three years violate a parole order or commit some other damned crime. Where’s the security in that?”

A Newsom spokesman said he does not expect to lay off prison staff as part of the change.

San Quentin is known as the seat of California’s death row, although the state has not executed an inmate since 2006. Newsom declared a moratorium on executions in 2019. In 2022, he announced a plan to disband death row and send convicted inmates to other locations.

The new plan would complete the closure of death row and shut down a prison industry agency camp. The facility would be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

Some of the larger questions about the reorganization will remain unanswered until the prison’s advisory committee makes a decision, including which inmates will be eligible for the rehabilitation center.

The new facility will also offer job training, according to the governor’s office, although the advisory committee must decide which jobs inmates will be trained for. In prisons in other states where job training is a priority, jobs include plumbing and long-distance transportation.

The plan for the new facility is modeled after prisons in Scandinavian countries, including Norway, which significantly improved its recidivism rate from 60-70% in the 1980s to around 20% today when it began allowing more freedom for prisoners and its prisons to focus on rehab.

In these prisons, inmates can wear their own clothes, cook their own food, and move relatively freely within the prison walls. This model has found a foothold in states as diverse as deep blue Connecticut and deep red North Dakota.

Conditions in San Quentin

As early as 1983, San Quentin was a symbol of California’s inability to safely house its inmates. A federal Justice Department report earlier this year pointed to overcrowded conditions, filthy facilities and “serious management problems.”

More than 20 years later, San Quentin prisoners were among those who filed a lawsuit against the California prison system, claiming the medical care they received was inadequate. As part of that lawsuit, a judge found that up to 10 deaths in San Quentin were due to preventable causes.

More recently, at least seven San Quentin inmates went on a hunger strike to protest what they say are grim conditions during a massive COVID-19 outbreak and quarantine at the facility in 2021.

Gangs could operate in San Quentin as they did in most California prisons. Even at its highest security unit, the Safe Housing Unit, which keeps particularly dangerous or influential inmates in solitary confinement for up to an hour or two a day, a former member of a California prison gang has told CalMatters he’s able to outrun a crew of Mexican Mafia gang members from the unit.

The prison, California’s oldest, also has a long list of maintenance needs that totaled more than $1.6 billion in 2021. A report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office last month showed the state has the capacity to close up to nine prisons and eight yards by 2027 as California’s inmate population continues to shrink, and recommended closing the prisons with the greatest maintenance needs.

A model for rehabilitation in California

But San Quentin is also a hub of opportunity for inmates, with an award-winning prison newspaper, the inmate-hosted podcast Ear Hustle, and a college program that allows inmates to earn an associate’s degree in general science after completing 20 classes.

Turning the few things that work at San Quentin on its head would be one of the downsides to restructuring the prison, said Brian Kaneda, associate director of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, which has a list of 10 prisons, the Newsom scheduled to close by 2027.

“One reason San Quentin isn’t on our list for closures is that it has good programming,” Kaneda said. “Well, there’s no such thing as a bad prison to close, we’d love for San Quentin to close, but what’s happening with the programming there?”

The broader plan, Kaneda said, set off “a major alarm bell” for prison abolitionists.

“The last thing California needs is a new incarceration philosophy spearheaded by (the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) who have proven poor stewards of public trust,” Kaneda said.

The Assembly’s Republican caucus did not immediately respond to messages from CalMatters seeking comment.

A bill passed by lawmakers last year would have created a similar pilot program on other prison campuses. Newsom vetoed that bill, blaming the cost.

The bill’s author, Assemblyman Carlos Villapuda, a Stockton Democrat, said he traveled to Norway with CDCR officials this year to better understand how their prisons work. Villapudua’s proposal focused on trucking, an industry in his district that he said needed fresh blood.

The proposal he devised would have allowed people incarcerated to obtain their commercial driver’s license while still in prison.

“So before you’re released, you’re state-certified,” Villapudua said. “This will be the answer to many of our prayers.”

Learn about the lawmakers featured in this story

State Assembly, District 13 (Stockton)

As he chose 2021-2022

liberal
Conservative

District 13 demographics

voter registration

To the

50%

GOP

21%

No party

22%

campaign posts

asm. At least Carlos Villapudua got it
$26,800
of the Agriculture
sector since he was elected to the legislature. That represents
17%
all of his campaign contributions.

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Two guards walk towards the entrance of San Quentin State Prison during a media tour of California’s Death Row in San Quentin, California December 29, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – The infamous San Francisco Bay State Penitentiary, which has housed the largest death row population in the United States, is being converted into a prison where less dangerous prisoners receive education, training and rehabilitation under a new plan of the California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The Democratic governor will discuss his proposed remodeling of San Quentin State Penitentiary during a visit Friday.

READ MORE: Why cancer patients who leave prison struggle to get care

The facility will be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and the inmates serving their sentences there will be relocated to another location in the California correctional system. The state has 668 prisoners facing the death penalty, almost all male, and about 100 have already been transferred, state prison officials said.

“Today we are taking the next step in our quest for true rehabilitation, justice and safer communities through this proven secured investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California model — that will lead the nation,” Newsom said in a statement on Thursday the coming changes.

Newsom’s move, who recently began his second term, follows his 2019 moratorium on executions and dismantling of the prison’s gas chamber, as well as his 2022 announcement that some inmates would be transferred from San Quentin to other prisons.

Full details of the plan were not immediately released, although officials said the facility will focus on “education, rehabilitation and breaking the cycle of crime.”

San Quentin, California’s oldest prison, housed high-profile criminals such as cult leader Charles Manson, convicted murderers and serial killers, and was the scene of violent riots in the 1960s and 1970s. But it has also been the site of some of the most innovative inmate programs in the country.

Newsom’s office cited Norway’s approach to incarceration, which focuses on preparing people to return to society, as inspiration for the program. Oregon and North Dakota have also drawn inspiration from the Scandinavian country’s politics.

WATCH: Man released after 28 years in prison reflects on wrongful murder conviction

In Norwegian maximum-security prisons, cells often look more like dormitories with additional furniture like chairs, desks and even televisions, and prisoners have access to kitchens and activities like basketball. The country has a low recidivism rate.

In the renovated San Quentin, job training programs would prepare people to get high-paying jobs as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers after they’re released, Newsom told the Los Angeles Times.

A group of public safety experts, crime victims and ex-prisoners will advise the state on the transformation. Newsom is committing $20 million to launch the plan.

Republican Assembly Member Tom Lackey criticized Newsom’s criminal justice system priorities and said the governor and Democratic lawmakers should spend more time focusing their efforts on assisting crime victims.

“Communities win when we make rehabilitation efforts, but what about the victims?” said Lakai. “Have we rehabilitated her?”

Meanwhile, Taina Vargas, executive director of Initiate Justice Action, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group, said she’s pleased the state is moving toward rehabilitating inmates, but more drastic changes are needed to transform the criminal justice system that does so many people imprisoned.

“Longer term, I think we want to prevent people from going to jail in the first place, which means we want to provide more opportunities for high-paying jobs in the community,” she said.

READ MORE: Oklahoma has been trying to lower its incarceration rate. But many obstacles face the new releases

California voters upheld the death penalty in 2016 and voted to speed up executions. Newsom’s decision to stop her in one of his first major acts as governor was quickly dismissed by critics, including prosecutors who said he was ignoring voters.

But Californians have also backed the relaxation of certain criminal sanctions to reduce mass incarceration as part of a more recent move away from the hard-crime policies once dominant in the state.

San Quentin, north of San Francisco, was also home to some of the country’s most innovative inmate programs, reflecting the Bay Area’s politically liberal beliefs.

Among other things, San Quentin is home to Mount Tamalpais College, the country’s first accredited junior college to be entirely behind bars. The school offers inmates courses in literature, astronomy, US government, and others to earn an Associate of Arts degree.

The college’s $5 million annual budget is funded through private donations with volunteer faculty members from nearby top universities, including Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.

The prison also operates a newspaper called the San Quentin News, and several inmates recorded and produced the hugely popular podcast Ear Hustle while in prison.

Newsom’s announcement came during a four-day political tour of California, rather than a traditional address to the state.

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SAN JOSE (KPIX) — As the state’s indoor mask mandate for fully vaccinated reaches an end, health experts are reminding Californians that cases remain high.

Stanford Infectious Disease Dr. Abraar Karan cautioned that removing masks right now is a “risky game” and “experiment” on whether the easing of the health measure could cause another surge in cases.

READ MORE: San Francisco Voters Recall 3 Embattled School Board Members

“Personally, I think it’s a little bit early,” Karan said. “Taking masks off like this may very well lead to an uptick in cases again. I’m concerned about the date that was picked. I’ve encouraged people, who are public health experts, really should not be focusing on the dates — they should be focusing on the data.”

On Tuesday, the state’s positivity rate stood at 5.7%, which is slightly lower than the peak of last winter’s deadly surge despite the difference this year in access to vaccines.

Karan said it’s possible California may not see another surge after the indoor mask mandate expires Wednesday. However, he said that would likely be because more people than once thought contracted COVID-19 and have a boost in immunity.

READ MORE: COVID: North Bay Businesses Owners Cautiously Excited Indoor Mask Mandate Is Lifted

Meanwhile, while some government leaders are planning the reopening of the economy, others are focused on helping those in the community impacted by the virus forever, including children who lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19.

During their regularly scheduled meeting, Santa Clara County supervisors discussed what they have named the “Children’s Roadmap to Recovery.”

Supervisor Cindy Chavez said an estimated 1 in 450 children have lost a parent to the virus. It’s important, she said, for the youth to have services such as grief counseling, behavioral services and wellness centers on school grounds. The recovery plan would be funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, which is an emergency fund from Congress.

Chavez said, what’s more, is that an estimated 7,000 kids in the county lost childcare because of the pandemic when 12% of providers left for more affordable cities or other reasons. County leaders are now focused on rebuilding the area’s childcare infrastructure to send parents back to the workforce and boost the economy.

MORE NEWS: Police Arrest Suspect In San Francisco New Year’s Day Dognapping

“That particular segment of the business community has just collapsed,” Chavez said. “We had so many people who dropped out of the workforce because they had no way to care for their children. I think what’s particularly heartbreaking about it is, as the world opens up, for some the road home is not clear because they don’t have that parent anymore or that caregiver.”

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• EUR/USD bears are moving in from the hourly the 38.2% ratio.
• 1.1305 serves as potential support below current lows.
• Russia and central bank sentiments are the driving forces.

EUR/USD is bleeding the initial gains for the day as risk appetite drifts off with the major Asian indexes printing in the red. EUSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.2%, while Japan’s Nikkei lost 2.5%. At 1.1353, the euro is now flat on the day to the US dollar after correcting a significant portion of Friday’s sell-off to a high in the 1.1369’s.

The start of the week is jittery following alarmingly high US inflation readings last week combined with risks of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. US president Joe Biden and Russian president Vladimir Putin talked by phone for an hour on Saturday in what is widely seen as a last-ditch effort to fend off a Russian invasion of Ukraine. The call, however, brought “no fundamental change” to the worsening crisis although the US and Russia have agreed to stay engaged in the coming days according to a senior US official, briefing reporters. The official also told reporters that ”Russia may decide to proceed with military action anyway.”

Meanwhile, there is speculation that the Federal Reserve might raise rates by a full 50 basis points in March with chatter about an emergency inter-meeting hike. That was spurred in part by the timing of a closed Fed Board meeting for Monday, though the event has been presumed routine.

However, not all Fed members are singing from the same hymn sheet. While hawking and St. Louis Fed James Bullard advocated for a 50bps hike at the March meeting, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly played down the need for a half-point move in an interview on Sunday. Daly argued that being too “abrupt and aggressive” on policy could be counter-productive. Fed President James Bullard will be in focus later on Monday, given his recent calls for a more aggressive stance at the Fed, signifying 100 basis points of tightening by June.

US FOMC minutes / Retail Sales in focus

As for other events in the week, the Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes will be released and traders will be on the lookout for discussions regarding near-term policy plans. Analysts at TD Securities explained that the market will be paying particular attention to plans for balance sheet normalization steps, following the release of the normalization “principles” in Jan.

”The minutes might seem stale, however, given the recent strength in macro data,” the analysts added. Markets will then look to US Retail Sales where an improvement on December’s sharp decline could be supportive to the US dollar.

EUR/USD technical analysis

As illustrated, the euro is on the back foot again, capped by the 38.2% ratio, so far, which leaves the emphasis on the downside and prospects of a bearish extension of the broader trend. 1.1305 serves as potential support below current lows.

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The following excerpt is from the November 2021 issue of The Strad entitled “Bay Area bow makers: Bows on the bay”. To read it in full, click here to sign up and log in. The digital magazine and the print edition from November 2021 are available now

The very first bow maker in the San Francisco Bay Area was Pierre Aloysius Josephs. Born in New York in 1833, his father was a well-known builder. Pierre moved west with his family and probably studied violin in St. Louis, Missouri in the early 1850s. At this time he developed a keen interest in violin making. Eventually the family moved to Elwood, Kansas, where he fought for the Union in the 1861 Civil War, a lieutenant in the First Regiment Kansas Volunteer Infantry. He registered his occupation as a “jeweler” in the 1863 Kansas Military Design, a demanding and precise art that would determine his skill.

According to the family, he honed his skills as a violin and bow maker during a series of business trips to Paris between 1864 and 1872, where he spent some time in the shop of Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. This claim is supported by an 1864 Ellis Island document; the influence is also evident in its processing. As early as 1870 he was working as a violin maker in St. Joseph, Missouri, as recorded in the local directory. He worked in the St. Joseph area until 1876, when he boarded the newly constructed railway line from St. Louis to San Francisco with his ninety-year-old parents, his second wife and their seven children. He initially settled in Oakland, California and moved to busy San Francisco in 1877. He soon settled at 1412 Kearny Street as a violin and bow maker in a three-generation household.

While his main motive for moving west was to take care of his active, older parents, he may also have been motivated by the mild weather. In a newspaper article from 1886 he attributed the success of his instruments to the climate of California and briefly mentioned his bow making in San Francisco – the first mention of bow making in the region.

Pierre Aloysius, who was also called Peter, worked alongside his work as a violin maker in California on various occasions as an employee, salesman and businessman. However, Vuillaume was enough to recommend him to August Wilhelmj as the best craftsman in the West; The great violinist raved about Joseph’s skills in a letter dated December 8, 1881: “I really wanted to tell you … about the extraordinary success that your work has achieved.”

The evidence shows that Pierre Aloysius was a successful violin and bow maker in the early years of San Francisco. During his time there, he made frequent trips to New York and even Europe – a huge and expensive undertaking at the time. In 1885 he returned from a trip to Europe, during which he undoubtedly worked with his Parisian violin-maker and archetypal contacts. He stayed in San Francisco for eleven years and returned to New York with his second wife and younger children in 1888. He died there in 1898.

Pierre Aloysius had two sons from his first wife who stayed in the Bay Area, where they took root. John was a noted violinist and founding member of the San Francisco Symphony in 1911. His other son, James Arnold Josephs, born 1859 in Elwood, Kansas, learned violin and bow making from his father. They worked together in San Francisco until he took over the shop when his father returned to New York in 1888.

In 1898, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, James had “earned a reputation as a maker of fine violin bows”. This was an important achievement. From 1877 onwards, James made violins and bows and was associated with his celebrated father. James did not advertise his business. Customers knew him through word of mouth, the quality of his work, and repairs, which enabled him to stay in business for decades. His reputation was certainly bolstered by that of his violinist brother John.

Josephs continued to work on Kearny Street in San Francisco from 1877 to 1902 when he moved his residence and workshop across the bay to Alameda and later to Oakland. A reliable presence in the stringing world of East Bay, James worked there with a brief respite from around 1930 until his death in 1943 at the age of 84.

Photo: John Birkard

Although Pierre Aloysius is known to have made bows in San Francisco, none have yet been found. This sheet, which was created after moving to New York, shows the clear influence of the Voirin School. The head is elegant, almost delicate, with a long nose. The bevel is crisp and clean. The frog is well proportioned. The collar of the button goes perfectly with the stick, although the rest of the button is slightly larger than the end of the stick.

Photo: John Birkard

Stylistically, this bow is not as elegant as the other, but Joseph’s perfectionism comes into its own. Also made after moving to New York, this bow has a short nose in relation to the head. The bevel is quite clean. Since he was not a full-time bow maker like his mentors in France, he had the freedom to experiment with different head shapes and different woodcuts – in this case pernambuco cut on the plate. Interestingly, he stamped his name upside down on this ribbon.

Photo: Courtesy of Joseph’s family

This arch shows that James Josephs was a good maker with an eccentric sense of style. The head is box-shaped, reminiscent of Thomas Tubbs, although the curvature of the head is deeply concave. James probably didn’t stamp many of his bows.

Read: Bow Makers In The Bay Area: Bows In The Bay

Read: Button Dynasty: A Tangled Web

Read: Herrmann bowmaker dynasty: a lasting legacy

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WASHINGTON, 22nd September 2020 / PRNewswire / – The plumbing pipe attorney is urging large, highly regarded plumbing companies in major cities to focus some of their business on repipes for existing single family homes in a desperate need of this service. Most single family homes in The United States are over 30 years old and many of these homes are in need of replacing their entire plumbing system. Often times, when the attorney speaks to homeowners, they are stunned to learn that the 40+ year old galvanized pipe in their home is at the end of its life. They also often have the same conversation with homeowners, who are stunned to learn that their 60-year-old copper pipe on their home is also at the end of its life. What most homeowners fail to realize is that a prescription for their home is likely to cost less $ 10,000-including wall repairs. The group believes that home plumbing restoration is a potential multi-billion dollar business year across the country.

Plumbing plumbing recipe

Plumbing Pipe Advocate

Some of the piping used for scientific experiments in the 1990s through 2010 may require replacement of some of these systems, down to anything made with copper or brass plumbing fixtures China. When a buyer of an existing single family home calls the attorney about faulty plumbing – and they want to know who to sue – the attorney usually tells the purchaser who just bought the older home, “Please sue your home inspector – who had no idea which pipelines – their service life – and / or pipelines – or fittings were made China. “https://PlumbingPipeAdvocate.Com

The plumbing pipe attorney says, “We’re by far the best brand resource on the internet for broken Chinese copper plumbing (Google it). Our bottom line is that major plumbing companies in the metropolitan area need to look for single family homes – and we want to help – by raising public awareness of the problem. If a very reputable large plumbing company in the metropolitan area would like to work with us on this important initiative, please call us at 866-714 -6466. ”

Some of the first cities the Plumbing Pipe Advocate is targeting for its Repipe initiative include:

• The angel
• Chicago
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• Philadelphia
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• San Diego
• Seattle
• San Francisco
• Dallas
• Minneapolis
• Atlanta
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As part of this “Repipe Initiative” for private households, the Plumbing Pipe Advocate would also like to support certain manufacturers of US-made plumbing pipes for private households so that US homeowners know how to identify proven products. These types of domestic plumbing pipes include PEX, CPVC, copper, and cast iron. https://PlumbingPipeAdvocate.Com

The ultimate goal of the Plumbing Pipe Advocate is to protect America’s homebuyers or homeowners from broken plumbing to plumbing pipes that need replacing due to age. The attorney urges homeowners to avoid a pavement approach to plumbing that needs to be replaced. The group urges homeowners and home builders to use only local, highly regarded plumbers and high quality plumbing pipes and fittings that are made in the United States. https://PlumbingPipeAdvocate.Com

Media contact
Michael Thomas
866-714-6466
[email protected]

SOURCE Plumbing Pipe Advocate

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The post Plumbing Pipe Advocate Appeals to Bigger Metro Space Plumbing Contractors to Focus a Portion of Their Enterprise to Repipes of Current Single-Household Houses-Most New Owners Are Clueless About Plumbing Pipe Lifespans appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.