Diablo's Week in Review October 10-17, 2009

Photos of Jaycee Dugard, as an adult, released, rare October storm soaks Bay Area, and Danville high school principal put on leave for alleged gun incident.

Photos of Jaycee Lee Dugard, as an adult, become public: Jaycee Lee Dugard, as a smiling, brunette 29-year-old, graces the cover of this week's People magazine, seven weeks after she was discovered living in captivity in Antioch. She had been living with her alleged abductors, Phillip and Nancy Garrido, since she was kidnapped 18 years ago at age 11. The 10-page feature also shows Dugard with her mother and two daughters, 11 and 15, whom she is believed to have fathered with Phillip Garrido. Dugard was not interviewed for the piece, except to release a statement: "I'm so happy to be back with my family." People close to her say she has begun the slow process of recovery, and spends her time cooking and riding horses.

Rare October storm batters Bay Area, but does not end drought: A storm, unlike one seen in October in half a century, dumped record amounts of rainfall, whipped up winds, and caused 200 serious car crashes and thousands of customers to lose power. Some 2.65 inches of rain fell in Livermore, a one-day record for October, and more than 3 inches fell in Concord. The downpour, however, did not ease drought worries, state water officials say. Most of the rain just ran off into gutters and into the ocean, and the accompanying warm temperatures prevented much snow from falling in the Sierras and adding to the snowpack.

Monte Vista High principal put on leave after gun incident: Longtime principal Rebecca Smith has been placed on paid administrative leave, pending an investigation over her alleged handling of an airgun, "in an inappropriate manner," in front of a student. The San Ramon Valley Unified School District received an anonymous tip that she handled the Airsoft pistol, which shoots plastic pellets, in the presence of a student. No other details about the incident were available. Smith has been principal at the Danville high school for 16 years.

Bay Area bridge tolls may go up $1 more: The Bay Area Toll Authority is mulling over a proposal to charge motorists $5, instead of $4, to cross state-owned bridges, and to add a surcharge for travel over the Bay Bridge during rush hour. The regional panel is looking for ways to pay for the seismic upgrades of the Antioch and Dumbarton bridges. The fee hike would not apply to the Golden Gate Bridge, which is run by a separate district and currently charges a $6 toll. 

Two academics win Nobel Prizes for research done at UC Berkeley: Elizabeth Blackburn, now at UC San Francisco, was awarded the prize for medicine, largely for research that she and her co-winner and former graduate student Carol Greider conducted while they were at Cal. The two solved the mystery of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide. Meanwhile, UC Berkeley Professor Oliver Williamson shared the economics prize for his research on how businesses make decisions on such issues as wwhen to manufacture internally or outsource production. Twenty-one Cal faculty members have received the prize since 1939 in such fields as economics, physics, ahd chemistry.

Earthquakes strike south of Pleasanton: A 3.7-magnitude earthquake struck just south of Pleasanton Tuesday night, followed by two smaller tremblors.  Fortunately, police and fire departments received no reports of damage or injuries.  The quake struck just a few days before the 20th anniversary October 20 of the Loma Prieta earthquake. 

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