Covid-19

This year, Chico State could face a budget deficit of over $30 million. To cut costs, university officials are slowing hiring, reducing travel, and trying to encourage more students to enroll.

In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, California public schools have been receiving less funding from the state. In Plumas County, a district says it will have to lay off staff to account for the shortfall. Also, storm runoff from the Park Fire burn scar is helping experts understand how wildfires affect the region’s waterways, and a North State congressman is voicing his disapproval of a new national monument in California.

We’re in the trenches of cold and flu season, and officials say it’ll get worse before it gets better. North State doctors offer their experience and advice on avoiding this season’s ick.

A strain of influenza appears to have disappeared from the planet since COVID. As a result, U.S. flu vaccines have been redesigned.

Ronnie Dean Stout II pleaded not guilty in court yesterday to Park Fire arson charges. Also, at Chico State's Fall Convocation, faculty and community members addressed students. Chico State's President highlighted increased admissions at the school. Mayor Andrew Coolidge also spoke in a video about the city’s homeless settlement agreement. And moderate to heavy rainfall is possible over the Park Fire burn scar today and tomorrow.

The city of Chico is looking into reports of potential contamination in water at its sanctioned alternative campsite for unhoused residents. Also, a fast-moving grassfire in Butte County yesterday prompted evacuations. Forward progress was quickly stopped, but Cal Fire says it’s another reminder to be ready to evacuate, and California has ordered insurance companies to keep policies in place for those affected by the Thompson Fire.

The city of Chico is being ordered to release information surrounding the 2017 police killing of Tyler Rushing. Also, health officials are urging the public to get vaccinated against the newest strains of COVID-19, and as a prolonged heat wave continues in the North State residents may struggle to pay their electricity bills.

Fire survivors finding it challenging to pay for building permits in Butte County could get some help from the board of supervisors. Also, part of Highway 70 may remain blocked for two more weeks after a rockslide, and the Glenn County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook that it will now dispatch emergency calls for all fire districts as well as law enforcement.

Part of Highway 70 in the Feather River Canyon is still closed after a rockslide earlier this week. Also, cars and trucks made and sold in California would have to be equipped with technology preventing them from traveling more than 10 mph over the speed limit under a new bill in the state Legislature, and Californians have relied on the hotline to get same-day prescriptions of Paxlovid — the medication that treats COVID-19. When the hotline shuts down, this easy access will come to an end too.

California relaxed its COVID-19 isolation guidelines just as infections for the respiratory virus increased. Symptom-free people can go to work or school.