Libby Schaaf.
1. Mayor Libby Schaaf secured a $750,000 anonymous grant to train local residents to become Oakland police officers, the Trib$ reports. The city plans to use the funds to expand the Oakland police cadet program in conjunction with Oakland public schools. The grant, along with $450,000 in funds appropriated by the city council, will pay for 25 new cadet positions for recent high school graduates. More than 90 percent of the Oakland police force lives outside of the city — a problem that city officials have struggled to fix for years.
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3. Fisheries experts are raising alarms about the sudden die off of fur seals along the West Coast, the Chron reports. The die off, which scientists from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration are calling an “unusual mortality event,” appears to be tied to abnormally warm waters in the western Pacific.
5. And after GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson declared that Muslims are unfit to serve in the White House — a racist declaration that has stirred controversy within the Republic Party — he has skyrocketed to the top of the polls and is now in a virtual tie with Donald Trump. Trump’s poll numbers jumped significantly this summer after he falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants were rapists and murderers.