San Jose had not won since Dec. 16, but the Sharks put that to rest with a hard-fought 6-3 road win over the Vancouver Canucks, taking an early 2-0 lead and hanging on despite Vancouver cutting the deficit down to one goal three different times.

Ryan Reaves opened the scoring for San Jose (18-17-3) with a tap-in of a loose puck at the 6:13 mark of the first period. John Klingberg doubled the lead with a shot from the center of the blue line at 7:55 after a screen from Igor Chernyshov limited the visibility of Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko.

Vancouver (15-19-3) responded with a power-play goal by Linus Karlsson, who tapped in a cross-ice pass from Conor Garland for an easy score to make it 2-1 at 10:04.

The Sharks stretched the lead back to two goals when William Eklund chipped a puck toward the net just outside the crease and it flipped over Demko’s shoulders and into the back of the net.

Vancouver’s Marco Rossi may have made the final contact on the play, but the goal counted just the same.

Rossi scored on another tipped goal very early in the third period, as the puck deflected up over Yaroslav Askarov in the midst of several chips near the crease.

Igor Chernyshov doubled the deficit once more when he scored his first NHL goal five minutes into the third, depositing a power-play shot around Demko’s left pad at the 4:47 mark.

Drew O’Connor brought the Canucks closer one more time with a shorthanded score at the 10:43 mark of the third period.

Macklin Celebrini added another goal for the Sharks at the 16:20 mark of the third with a stunning one-timer from the left circle. It was Celebrini’s second point of the game, giving him 57 this season.

Collin Graf added an empty-netter at 16:55 to seal the bounce-back win for San Jose.

The loss was the first for Demko in 14 games against the Sharks.

Check back for updates to this story.

Banatao is known for pioneering the technology that made personal computers possible, thus putting Silicon Valley on the map. He also co-founded three technology companies and started a nonprofit to help support Filipinos in STEM fields.

“Rising from humble beginnings in Cagayan, he went on to co-found transformative technology companies and played a pivotal role in advancing the global semiconductor and graphics industries,” said the National Federation of Filipino American Associations on LinkedIn in honor of Banatao’s passing. “Just as importantly, he invested deeply in people opening doors, mentoring founders and strengthening communities.”

According to a post on his website by his family, Banatao passed away peacefully on Christmas Day, surrounded by family and friends. His family said he “succumbed to complications from a neurological disorder that hit him late in his life.” He would have been 80 in May.

His family wrote, “We are mourning his loss, but take comfort from the time spent with him during this Christmas season, and that his fight with this disease is over.”

Banatao was born to a rice farmer and housekeeper in Iguig, Cagayan, according to ABS-CBN. According to his 2015 documentary, he didn’t have access to electricity growing up and was taught math using bamboo sticks. He said it was typical for his classmates to stop going to school after sixth grade to help their parents work in the fields, but his father told him to continue studying.

He developed a love for engineering and graduated with a degree in electric engineering from Mapua Institute of Technology, a private research university in Manila. He said in his documentary that there were no design jobs for engineers in the Philippines, so he moved to the U.S. and pursued a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University. He graduated in 1972.

Soon after college, Banatao worked as a design engineering at Boeing. ABS-CBN reported that he then went on to work for other technology companies, like National Semiconductor and Intersil. While at Commodore International, he designed the first single chip, 16-bit microprocessor-based calculator.

He is credited with developing the first 10-Mbit ethernet CMOS chip in 1981 while working at Seeq Technology. He also developed the first system logic chipset for IBM’s PC-XT and PC-AT and one of the first graphics accelerators for personal computers. These inventions allowed for faster computer performance, according to Inquirer.net. The Harvard Club of Southern California credited Banatao for bringing GPS technology to consumers.

“Dado is the man who invented a graphical chipset that took us from black screens with green writing to the dynamic displays we have today,” the club wrote for a description of a lecture he gave in 2017 for the Harvard Business School Association of Orange County.

Banatao founded the chipset company Mostron with a business partner in 1984. One year later, he also co-founded Chips and Technologies, a graphics adapter company that Intel later acquired for around $430 million.

The CEO of Intel, Lip-Bu Tan, expressed his grief at Banatao’s passing on LinkedIn, crediting his friend for challenging him when he became CEO of Cadence Design in 2009.

“I am forever grateful for your challenge and encouragement as I continue my life journey following your footstep as CEO of Cadence Design for 12 years and continuing as CEO intel,” Tan said in his post. “Dado, you are the best technology entrepreneur and legend from (the) Philippines.”

He then founded S3 Graphics in 1989, which led the local bus concept and developed Windows accelerator chips, becoming the third-most profitable technology company in 1993. In 2000, Banatao entered the world of venture capital by founding Tallwood Venture, a firm focused on investing in semiconductor technology, and served as managing partner.

While working at Tallwood in 2011, Banatao told Bloomberg News that he encouraged his companies to expand internationally, focusing particularly in China, due to greater government support and lower production costs.

“It used to be that we started companies here and we didn’t think about going offshore until we were substantially big,” Banatao said when he was 64 at his office in Palo Alto. “At the outset now, as we fund the company, we think about going outside right away.”

Dinakar Munagala, co-founder and CEO at Blaize, Inc., a computer hardware manufacturer in El Dorado Hills, wrote on LinkedIn that he was “deeply saddened” by Banatao’s death.

“Dado was instrumental in shaping Blaize during its formative years,” Munagala said. “His belief in our mission, steady counsel, and generous spirit left a lasting mark on all of us who had the privilege of learning from him.”

Banatao has received several awards and recognitions for his contributions, including the Pamana ng Filipino Award in 1997, Asian Leadership Award in 1993, and the Ramon V. Del Rosario Award in 2018, according to ABS-CBN. In 2003, the Asian American Activities Center at Stanford recognized Banatao in the university’s Multicultural Alumni Hall of Fame.

Inquirer.net also reported that an institute at the University of California bears his name: the Banatao Institute at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society.

Banatao founded the Philippine Development Science and Technology Foundation, a nonprofit also known as PhilDev that provides scholarships, mentorship and training programs to young Filipinos in STEM fields. His family urged people to donate to PhilDev in Banatao’s memory.

“We (Filipinos) know hardship,” Banatao said in his documentary. “It’s time we learn success.”

Staff writer Kyle Martin contributed to this report. 

San Jose was off for three days with the NHL on its holiday break, but given how their last game went, the Sharks are undoubtedly eager to get back onto the ice. 

The Sharks are sniffing the playoffs, chasing two points behind Los Angeles and Utah as they look to secure their first playoff spot since 2019. 

If Tuesday night’s performance against the Golden Knights was any indication, the Sharks are not ready to make the leap to playoff-caliber team this season after finishing last in the NHL the past two seasons. But they’ll have a good chance to right the ship against Vancouver, which is the worst team in the Pacific Division and one of the worst teams in the league.

Despite trading away their best player in defenseman Quinn Hughes, the Canucks have won four of their last five games. 

But make no mistake. Despite coming back cold after a few days off and coming off a pitiful performance against Vegas, this is the kind of game a playoff team should win. 

It would behoove the Sharks to take care of business Saturday night given what’s ahead on their upcoming schedule. San Jose will travel to Pacific Division co-leader Anaheim after Saturday’s game and then face Minnesota, Hughes’ new team, and Tampa Bay. 

Yaroslav Askarov will be in goal again for the Sharks despite being pulled in the first period Tuesday after giving up four goals on 16 shots against the Golden Knights. Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky offered a passionate defense of Askarov Tuesday night, essentially saying that San Jose’s defensive structure – or lack thereof – set him up to fail.

“Those goals aren’t Asky,” Warsofsky said. “We have to pull Asky, I mean, this kid needs to play. We got to get him going. We got to see him. He’s the future of this franchise as a goaltender. It’s unfair to him to have to pull him and take momentum, and it’s disappointing.”

The Sharks have a long travel day Saturday. Analyst Drew Remenda said Saturday that they were up at 6 a.m. to fly to Vancouver. 

San Jose had a morning skate in Vancouver at 11:30 ahead of a 7 p.m. game. They will travel to Anaheim immediately afterward, having to clear customs twice in one day.

Plenty of challenges on and off the ice, to be sure, especially without having practiced as a group since Tuesday. But the Sharks are going to return to the playoffs this year, wins against bottom feeders are a crucial part of that equation.

Naheed Mangi, 70, was convicted earlier this year of intentional damage to a protected computer. Prosecutors say that after being fired, she changed the database by replacing patient information with gibberish and childish insults like, “doctor too stupid.”

While the incident happened in 2013, Mangi wasn’t indicted until 2018, and wasn’t convicted until a jury trial last February, records show. Prosecutors asked for a 10-month sentence to be split between jail and house arrest, but instead Senior U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila sentenced Mangi to probation.

Her attorney argued in court that no time in custody was a just outcome.

“Notably, for the seven years since her arrest, Ms. Mangi has complied with her conditions of release. She is 70 years old and has lived at the same address for the past 28 years,” a defense sentencing memo says. “Ms. Mangi is currently unemployed, living a solitary life on her social security and savings.”

Mangi must pay $10,520.69 in restitution, court records show.

Mangi was working on a Stanford University study, sponsored by Genentech, testing a new, experimental pharmaceutical treatment for breast cancer. Prosecutors argued her actions betrayed the trust of patients who agreed to participate in the study, and that it was motivated by Mangi’s hurt feelings from being fired.

For the last month, the 49ers have been feasting on the NFL’s middle class (at best), stacking five straight wins like poker chips. But beating the Titans or the Colts is like winning a sparring match. Nice for the record, sure, but it doesn’t tell you if you can take a punch.

Sunday night against the also 11-4 Chicago Bears? Now that’s a worthy adversary — the first of two playoff games the 49ers will play before the playoffs officially start.

A win here does more than secure a sixth-straight victory; it sets the table for a blockbuster Week 18 showdown against the Seattle Seahawks for the NFC West crown and the conference’s No. 1 seed.

But to get to that winner-take-all finale, they first have to survive a Chicago team that has found its swagger.

So much swagger. Like, a curious amount of swagger for a team whose marquee win required an onside kick recovery to beat a backup quarterback.

Alas, they have every opportunity to back it up on Sunday.

Can the Niners’ beleaguered defense hold against one of the league’s best tacticians with a headset and talents at quarterback?

Can Brock Purdy and Kyle Shanahan keep the Niners’ offense humming if the irreplaceable George Kittle (didn’t practice all week, officially designated as questionable with an ankle injury) cannot play?

This game has all the makings of a shootout that should make Purdy and Williams (Iowa State and Oklahoma) feel like they’re back in college.

That’s precisely the kind of test this 49ers team needs right now.

Here are three predictions for Sunday night:

The 49ers Don’t Just Win, They Blow the Doors Off: I started the week thinking this might be a high-scoring, back-and-forth type of game, but I’m changing my tune.

I’m done predicting close games for the 49ers. They will play nothing but blowouts — one way or another, the rest of the year.

I think this way is a win.

The 49ers have flaws on top of flaws, but they are a more buttoned-up, lethal offense right now, while the Bears are high on their own supply after stealing a miracle win last week.

I trust Kyle Shanahan and Brock Purdy infinitely more than I trust the erratic brilliance of Caleb Williams or the too-cute-by-half Ben Johnson.

The 49ers are going to turn this into a track meet, and the Bears, a markedly worse third-down team than the Niners, won’t be able to keep pace.

Upton Stout Is the Key: The rookie nickelback is the X-factor in this game. The Bears’ offense lives and dies by tight splits, bunch formations, and confusion — specifically targeting the slot. They’ll destroy you in the run game if you go with base, three-linebacker formations.

If Stout can handle the communication and be a positive factor in the run game (as he was against the Colts), the Bears’ offense can stall. If Stout struggles, the 49ers get gashed.

I’m betting the ascending rookie holds his own.

Caleb Williams Gets Tricked into Mistakes: Williams is undeniably talented, but he plays with questionable feel for the rhythm of the NFL game.

He extends plays unnecessarily and is prone to being baited. The 49ers don’t need to do anything exotic on defense; they just need to be disciplined.

My prediction is that Williams gets bored taking what’s there, tries to play hero ball against a zone coverage he misreads, and gifts the 49ers the turnovers that turn this game into the blowout I’m expecting.

Final Score: 44 – 29 49ers.

More than 17 million Californians have health insurance through their job, according to a survey released in November by the health information group KFF. The average cost of premium payments for an employee’s family plan rose 24% to $28,400 a year, the survey found. Meanwhile, the national inflation rate was 12%, and wages grew by 14%, KFF wrote.

Health insurance premiums have risen year after year for decades. But costs spiked after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by industry consolidation, increasing use of Ozempic and similar weight-loss drugs and other factors, according to KFF. Together, these forces are putting pressure on families and businesses, while some major health insurance providers in California continue to post profits.

“People are paying more and more, it’s taking up more and more of their family budgets, and they’re getting less,” said Miranda Dietz, who leads UC Berkeley Labor Center’s health program.

Along with rising premiums, more California employees also face increasing out-of-pocket costs. Workers bear indirect costs, too, Dietz said. As businesses spend more on health plans, they spend less on wages and other benefits, she said. She cited a study that concluded the average family with employer-sponsored health insurance would have earned nearly $9,000 more in 2019 if the cost of care hadn’t increased disproportionately since the late 1980s.

Under the Affordable Care Act, businesses with at least 50 full-time equivalent employees must offer health insurance coverage that meets affordability and care requirements, or face fines. Workers and businesses split the cost, and in practice, businesses shoulder most of the burden: employers pay about three-quarters of a family plan premium, on average, and about 85% of single plans, according to KFF.

At the independent bookstore Booksmith in San Francisco’s storied Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, owner Christin Evans said four of her employees qualify for health benefits. She said she covers the full cost of her workers’ Kaiser Permanente care — one of her “top expenses” of doing business.

Her costs are rising, she said, by about 17% — to $3,250 each month in 2026 from $2,776 in 2025. Last year, premiums rose 7.5%, she said.

“Many small business owners will likely decide to cut benefit offerings and reduce wages,” said Bianca Blomquist, director of the advocacy group Small Business Majority California, in an email. “While some entrepreneurs may even close up shop and go work for someone else, mainly so they can access quality health insurance.”

Faced with high health insurance costs, owners could be unable to make other investments in their businesses, she said.

Matthew Rae, associate director of KFF’s health care marketplace program, led the California survey. Between January and July 2025, KFF oversaw interviews with 460 employee benefit managers at companies based in California or with workers here.

In an interview, Rae pinned part of the cost spike on the pandemic, which officially ended in May 2023. During the worst days of the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, insurance costs grew slowly as patients delayed serious care, he said.

Then “pent-up” need for care arrived, inflation nationally drove up prices and health care workers fought for better pay and benefits, Rae said.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law in 2023 setting separate minimum wages for health care employees, which reached $24 per hour at hospitals with 10,000 or more full-time employees this year. (The state’s general minimum wage is $16.50 per hour.)

Meanwhile, more Californians began using expensive GLP-1s such as Ozempic or Wegovy to manage diabetes and lose weight, Rae said. The hospital industry became more consolidated nationally, he said, which contributes to rising costs by reducing competition. More than 400 hospital and health system mergers were announced from 2018 to 2023, KFF said.

Meanwhile, some of California’s biggest insurers are posting profits.

An analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit watchdog, found Kaiser Permanente put $27 billion into reserves in the last four years. The Oakland-based health giant reports several billion dollars of profit each quarter. Elevance Health, the publicly-traded parent company of Anthem Blue Cross, reported $1.2 billion in profit in the third quarter of 2025, up from $1 billion the year prior, the Wall Street Journal reported.

While health plan premiums rose for workers and employers over the past three years, the quality of the insurance declined. The KFF survey found that 75% of workers now have a deductible, up from 68% three years ago.

According to the UC Berkeley Labor Center, less than half of Californians in the private sector had a deductible 20 years ago. Rae said that it can strain workers and their families.

“There’s a lot of worry about the affordability of plans for even people who are working,” or who have a family member who is, Rae said. “You’re pushing people past their assets, because the deductibles are too high.”

At the same time, changes are happening outside of the employer-based health insurance market. The new KFF data arrived in November as public health experts and patients began to brace for a big shake-up in the individual health insurance market: the expiration of Affordable Care Act tax credits that have benefited enrollees since 2021. In California, monthly premiums for those plans will double on average, according to Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Self-employed freelancers and contractors, in particular, can expect major price spikes when the credits expire at the end of December. But small business owners and their workers make up half of all Affordable Care Act enrollees nationally, said Blomquist, of the small business advocacy group.

This season, the Bears have parlayed six fourth-quarter comebacks into serious contention for Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium on Feb. 8.

But first at that venue Sunday night comes a Bears-49ers matchup that could dictate if either snags the NFC’s No. 1 seed and easiest path to the Lombardi Trophy. Both teams sport 11-4 records entering the penultimate game of the regular season, both are eying division titles.

“It is a really good feeling to have home-field advantage,” left tackle Trent Williams said. “Everybody that was here in ’23, I know they can remember the roar of the crowd and how just the atmosphere of playoff football here is different.”

The Bears, currently the No. 2 seed behind the Seattle Seahawks, will clinch the NFC North by beating the 49ers, so long as they didn’t already secure that title via a Packers’ loss Saturday night to Baltimore.

The 49ers, currently the No. 5 seed, could seize the No. 1 seed and the NFC West if they hold serve against the Bears and then knock off Seattle (12-3) in next weekend’s regular-season finale. (The Seahawks can make that matchup moot if they lock up the No. 1 seed Sunday by absurdly combining a 49ers-Bears tie with a Seattle win at Carolina and a Los Angeles Rams’ loss or tie Monday night at Atlanta.)

Here are five keys to a 49ers victory over the Bears, who are seeking only their third division title since their 2006 team lost in the Super Bowl:

1. WIN TURNOVER BATTLE

The Bears are the NFL’s best at winning the turnover battle. Their plus-21 mark (31 takeaways, 10 turnovers) is six better than the NFL’s next team (Houston), and it’s a glaring reminder how deficient the 49ers are (16 takeaways, 20 turnovers).

Brock Purdy is coming off Monday night’s five-touchdown masterpiece, slightly tainted by a fourth-quarter interception off Kendrick Bourne’s hands. That is the lone interception off Purdy in his past 3 ½ games and 112 passes, since a three-interception fiasco before halftime of the 49ers’ Nov. 24 win over Carolina.

The Bears’ best interceptors, so to speak, are all battling health issues: Kevin Byard (six interceptions), Nahshon Wright (five), and Tremaine Edumonds (four). Wright also has three fumble recoveries and two forced fumbles; the James Logan High and Laney College product gae inspiring tributes after John Beam’s slaying last month at Laney.

Christian McCaffrey didn’t lose either of his fumbles (vs. Jacksonville and Carolina) among his NFL-leading 372 touches.

2. STAY ALERT FOR CALEB

Caleb Williams, last year’s No. 1 overall draft pick, is humming along with 3,400 passing yards, 369 rushing yards and a 57.8% completion mark. He’s thrown 23 touchdown passes against six interceptions, but five of those interceptions have come on the road (with 10 touchdown passes).

Williams won’t have Rome Odunze for a fourth straight game, so the 49ers can focus their coverage on D.J. Moore (664 yards, six touchdowns) and tight end Colstand Loveland (528, four).

Williams got sacked a NFL-high 68 times last season, but he’s lowered that to 23 times this season, including 10 in the fourth quarter.

“It feels like when he starts scrambling, he gets more accurate. He is really, really dangerous when he leaves the pocket and he’s on the run,” defensive coordinator Robert Saleh said. “… He’s improved tremendously from a year ago.”

In the Bears’ 38-13 loss last December at Levi’s Stadium, Williams passed for just 134 yards, but he threw for two touchdowns with no turnovers.

3. RUN DEFENSE

The 49ers must prove that their run defense’s improvement was more than a mirage Monday at Indianapolis, where Jonathan Taylor fell out of the NFL rushing lead and gained just 46 yards on 16 carries.

The Bears boast the NFL’s second-best rushing average (152.1 per game; Buffalo is at 158.9 ypg). They’re dividing and conquering behind D’Andre Swift (993 yards, seven touchdowns, 204 carries) and seventh-round rookie Kyle Monangi (731 yards, three touchdowns, 155 carries).

Linebacker Tatum Bethune, despite aggravating an ankle injury Monday, should be OK directing the 49ers’ run defense. That push really starts up front with interior linemen Jordan Elliott, Kalia Davis, Alfred Collins and C.J. West.

The Bears favor running to their right, although it’s center Drew Dalman and left guard Joe Thuney who earned Pro Bowl honors while right tackle Darnell Wright got snubbed along with Nahshon Wright.

4. KITTLE CONUNDRUM

Tight end George Kittle attempted to play through a low-ankle sprain Monday night before getting sidelined through the fourth quarter – and possibly through this game against his childhood team after not practicing all week.

The 49ers are 10-14 without Kittle since 2017, but they went 3-2 this season after his Week 1 hamstring injury. Fellow tight ends Jake Tonges and Luke Farrell could get more run, but the 49ers also have fullback Kyle Juszczyk ready to fill some of Kittle’s multiple roles.

If Ricky Pearsall can return and push through a right-knee injury, then Purdy won’t so predictable in targeting Jauan Jennings and McCaffrey.

5. FINISH. FINISH. FINISH.

The Bears are producing fourth-quarter comebacks in historic fashion: They’re the first team to win six games after trailing in the final two minutes of regulation. Last week, they erased a 10-point deficit to the Green Bay Packers and won 22-16 in overtime to clinch their first playoff berth since 2020.

Over the past eight weeks, the Bears have scored a NFL-high 83 points in the fourth quarter and overtime.

The 49ers are 10-0 in games they’ve led at halftime, though they did rally after surrendering fourth-quarter leads in wins against Arizona (Week 3) and Los Angeles (Week 5).

On the flip side, the Bears have not allowed an opening-drive score in their past seven games and yielded just 10 opening-drive points all season, fewest in the league.

It’s a must-win game for the 49ers on the road to capturing the NFC West crown and No. 1 seed in the playoffs. They may be without star tight end George Kittle and receiver Ricky Pearsall, who are battling injuries.

The 49ers also have two games to prepare a playoff-inexperienced defense without injured leaders Fred Warner and Nick Bosa for the postseason stage. Warner suffered a fractured and dislocated ankle in October but the 49ers are not ruling out a potential return if they make a deep playoff run.

How to watch on local TV

NBC is broadcasting the game nationally; in the Bay Area, tune in to KNTV-TV (channel 11) with an antenna or a cable TV provider. You can also log in to the NBC Sports app or website with your cable TV subscription credentials.

How to stream

DirecTV Stream includes NBC in its local channel lineup. Subscriptions currently start at $29.99 per month.

FuboTV offers a free trial and $10 off the first month; after that, it is $55.99 per month.

Hulu+Live TV is a premium service with all the local channels and is $89.99 per month.

NFL+ is an app that streams all local and prime-time games. Plans start at $6.99 per month.

Peacock is a streaming service from NBCUniversal and starts at $7.99 a month.

YouTube TV costs $82.99 per month, but it’s currently on sale for $72.99 per month for the first three months.

The early part of LaBarbera’s Sunday shift is peacefully spent capturing, banding and releasing birds in what they call a “little oasis of trees.” But around 9:00 am every week, their team of volunteers hears a cacophony of car horns from I-880, less than half a mile to the east.

“You become really aware of the noise when you get away from it for a little bit,” said LaBarbera, a science director at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory.

The Bay Area is a permanent or temporary home for 250 different species of resident and migratory birds. Noise can affect their stress response, interfere with their ability to listen for predators and prey, and alter their vocalizations. But for conservationists striving to preserve the region’s threatened bird populations, disturbance from traffic, airplane and other noise is an unavoidable backdrop—and one that, until recently, has been little studied.

“I realized we knew hardly anything about how birds respond to noise pollution,” he says.

Scientists’ understanding of the impact of urban noise on birds advanced during the COVID-19 pandemic, however. When the Bay Area shut down in March 2020, researchers like Jennifer Phillips — then working with Francis through a National Science Foundation Fellowship — had been studying the songs of white-crowned sparrows in San Francisco and Richmond. They were able to record how the songs changed when the noise subsided. In a paper published in Science magazine, they reported that male sparrows sang more quietly and used lower frequencies when not having to compete with traffic noise.

But the pandemic’s muting of urban noise is long gone. And while the wetland birds of the South Bay don’t sing, they have to compete with urban sounds when they use vocalizations to communicate with each other and ward off predators.

The South Bay’s Salt Pond Restoration Project — the largest tidal restoration effort on the West Coast — provides habitat to the threatened Ridgway’s rail, an elusive species of bird that spends most of its time hiding in the tidal marsh where it nests. The project area also hosts about 10 percent of the population of endangered western snowy plovers. These tiny shorebirds now depend on the salt ponds and tidal flats — as well as on their normal habitat of sandy beaches — for nesting and foraging.

But the salt ponds are located directly under flight paths from Oakland Airport and Moffett Federal Airfield. Nearby highways and Union Pacific railroad tracks mean birds in the project area are constantly impacted by noise from planes, trains and automobiles.

Chronic noise “shrinks an animal’s perpetual word,” Francis said. When noise increases, the distance over which birds can hear sounds reduces.

While the effect of noise on rail species has not been studied directly, they vocalize at fairly low frequencies, which transportation noise tends to drown out.

Plovers, on the other hand, may be more sensitive to sudden noises. A large truck zooming by an otherwise quiet area, a barking dog or a cellphone ringing can create the illusion of a threat, causing birds to react.

“Episodic or intermittent noise is, I think, a bigger deal for wildlife than something steady or constant like highway noise or a data center or whatever else,” said Dave Halsing, project manager of the Salt Pond Restoration Project.

Francis recalls baby plovers on the Oceano Dunes near Pismo Beach on the Central Coast spending their nights darting away from their habitats, disturbed by off-road vehicles. The inexperienced chicks interpret the noise as an immediate threat and expend energy trying to evade it.

Still, Bay Area ornithologists and bird lovers are preoccupied with addressing more immediate threats of habitat destruction from further development, which means noise pollution is a lower priority.

“In conservation, we’re usually worried about the absolute emergency situation,” LaBarbera said.

Urban noise isn’t going away, but small changes can make a difference. Francis points to the growing number of cities enacting leaf blower regulations, which while they are often aimed at curbing emissions also help to reduce noise pollution. Switching to electric vehicles, choosing tire materials that generate less road noise, and adopting quieter jet engines can all help.

Managers of the Salt Pond Restoration Project are doing their part, taking steps to reduce noise in their own construction work when making trails or fortifying levees to reduce flood risk. They try to use less intrusive construction equipment, such as vibratory pile drivers. Halsing said the project is also required to implement buffer zones of several hundred feet between their construction work and certain species, including rails.

It’s a time-honored practice in conservation: Working for wildlife, while keeping one’s distance.

For three days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Valera in the metal-clad room on the sixth floor above the courtroom, according to a declaration he submitted to a judge. There were no beds, and the lights remained on at all hours. Detainees were forced to share a single toilet against the wall.

“They treated us like animals,” the 47-year-old Peruvian man told Bay Area News Group.

On Christmas Eve, five months after Velera’s arrest, a federal judge in San Jose temporarily barred ICE from making arrests at immigration courts across Northern California. Bay Area immigration advocates sued to halt the arrests, which they argue force those seeking refuge in the United States to choose between skipping their court dates, thereby increasing their chances of deportation, or attending the proceedings and risking detention.

“This ruling is a critical step in ensuring that immigrants can safely pursue their immigration cases without fear of arrest,” Jordan Wells, an attorney for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a statement.

The decision by U.S. District Court Judge P. Casey Pitts applies to ICE’s San Francisco area of responsibility, encompassing Northern and Central California, as far south as Bakersfield, and Hawaii. Pitts found advocates raised credible claims that the arrests have a chilling effect on court attendance and undermine the immigration court system. 

He ordered the ruling remain in place until a final judgment is entered in the case. It’s unclear when the lawsuit could be resolved.

This year, there have been at least 75 documented immigration court arrests in San Francisco, including Valera, and at least 39 in Sacramento, advocates said in an October court filing. It was unclear how many people have been arrested at the Bay Area’s other immigration court in Concord.

Attorneys for ICE argue that a January directive allowing the courthouse arrests nationwide is legal “operational guidance” authorized by the Trump administration. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

Under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, ICE arrests have surged, often topping 1,000 a day, according to data from UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. About a third of those arrested this year had no criminal record, according to analyses of the data by NPR and other news organizations.

“We are making America safe again and putting the American people first,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement earlier this month. “We have secured the border, taken the fight to cartels, and arrested thousands upon thousands of criminal illegal aliens.”

Valera, who has asked a court to grant him asylum, came to the United States three years ago, leaving behind his wife and young sons after fleeing criminal groups that he says threatened his life in his home country. Valera said he obtained a work permit and that he has cooperated with immigration officials while applying for asylum to remain in the U.S.

But after walking out of his immigration hearing on July 25, ICE immediately apprehended him. Soon after being taken to the holding cell, Valera said he began to feel half of his body going numb. Handcuffed to a stretcher, he spent the next day under observation at a hospital in San Francisco.

After being taken back to the cell, Valera said he received only small burritos and a chocolate bar at each meal. He and other detainees did their best to keep the area clean, but a small trash can in the corner quickly overflowed. The air conditioning ran constantly, and the men slept huddled together in the cell.

“They made us sleep on the floor in handcuffs,” Valera said.

Now, agents overseeing the San Francisco cells must provide detainees beds, clean clothes, basic hygiene products, medically necessary diets and to dim lights during sleeping hours, among other requirements, following a November injunction secured by advocates in the courthouse arrest case. 

ICE did not respond to a request for comment on the cell conditions. But government attorneys told the court the agency is complying with the injunction.

From San Francisco, Valera was transferred to a holding cell in Oakland before being flown to a larger detention facility in Arizona. A judge ordered his release about a week later, determining he had been unlawfully detained, attorneys said.

Valera was dropped off at a bus station and used his own money to buy a ticket back to San Francisco for the next day. He booked a motel room, where he took his first shower since his arrest about two weeks earlier.

Despite the ordeal, Valera, who currently rents a space in a home in Daly City, said he plans to continue his asylum case in hopes of making a better life for himself in the U.S. He wants to one day bring his family to join him.

“There are people who have gone through things that are far worse than what I went through, and I don’t wish that on anybody,” he said. “It’s very traumatic, to be honest, and I hope one day this all ends, that it goes back to normal, and that they don’t treat us that way. You come to work, not to commit crimes.”