By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — At least three people have died and three others have required liver transplants after eating the aptly named Death Cap mushroom that is proliferating in California following a rainy winter.

The California Department of Public Health is urging people to avoid mushroom foraging altogether this year because Death Cap mushrooms are easily confused with safe, edible varieties.

Since Nov. 18 there have been at least three dozen cases of mushroom poisonings reported, according to the health department. Many who sought medical attention suffered from rapidly evolving acute liver injury and liver failure. Several patients required admission to an intensive care unit. They have ranged in age from 19 months to 67 years old.

“This greatly exceeds the typical report of less than 5 cases of mushroom poisonings a year,” the department said in its public health warning.

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Experts warn that a mushroom’s color is not a reliable way of detecting its toxicity, and whether the Death Cap variety is raw, dried or cooked, does not make a difference.

Laura Marcelino told the San Francisco Chronicle that her family in the Northern California town of Salinas gathered mushrooms that looked like the ones she and her husband used to forage in their native Oaxaca, a state in Southern Mexico.

“We thought it was safe,” Marcelino, 36, said in Spanish.

Her husband was dizzy and tired the next day, but Marcelino felt fine, and they ate the mushrooms again, heating them up in a soup with tortillas. Their kids don’t like mushrooms and so didn’t have any. The next day, both adults, seasonal farmworkers, became ill with vomiting and stayed home from work.

Marcelino spent five days in the hospital, while her husband had to undergo a liver transplant.

People can have stomach cramping, nausea, diarrhea or vomiting within 24 hours after ingesting a toxic mushroom and the situation can quickly deteriorate after that, experts say. Early symptoms may also go away within a day, but serious to fatal liver damage can still develop within 2 to 3 days.

Death Cap mushrooms have been collected in local and national parks across Northern California and the Central Coast. Clusters have been identified in the Monterey and San Francisco Bay areas as well.

The public health department said those poisoned have included many Spanish, Mixteco, and Mandarin Chinese speakers and the state in response has expanded their warnings in different languages.

Children have been among those poisoned this year. Officials advise keeping an eye on children and pets outside where mushrooms grow, and buying mushrooms from trusted grocery stores and sellers.

Treatment is more difficult once symptoms start so doctors advise people to seek medical care once someone becomes aware that they have eaten a poisonous mushroom or suspect they have.

Craig Smollin, medical director for the San Francisco division of the California Poison Control System (CPCS) and an emergency medicine professor at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, said that death cap mushrooms tend to flourish between November and March in the state, though not usually to this extent.

NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Canada and France opened diplomatic consulates on Friday in the capital of Greenland, showing support for NATO ally Denmark and the Arctic island in the wake of U.S. efforts to secure control of the semiautonomous Danish territory.

Canada’s maple-leaf flag went up and dozens of people sang “O Canada” as Foreign Minister Anita Anand officially opened the country’s consulate in Nuuk, which is also the largest city of the icy Arctic island.

“The significance of raising this flag today and formally opening the consulate is that we will stand together with the people of Greenland and Denmark on many issues,” she said.

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Anand cited deepening ties on defense, security, climate change, economic resilience and Arctic co-operation.

France’s Foreign Ministry said Jean-Noël Poirier was taking up his duties as consul general on Friday, making it the first European Union country to establish a consulate general in Greenland.

Greenland’s Sermitsiaq reported that Poirier had arrived Friday along with Canada’s delegation, but said the consul doesn’t yet have a physical consulate.

Poirier will be “tasked with working to deepen existing cooperation projects with Greenland in the cultural, scientific, and economic fields, while also strengthening political ties with the local authorities,” the ministry said.

France says the decision to open its outpost was made when President Emmanuel Macron visited in June.

Canada pledged to open a consulate in Greenland in 2024, before Trump’s recent talk of a takeover, and the formal inauguration was delayed from November because of bad weather.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced last month he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats. He said a “framework” for a deal had been reached over access to mineral-rich Greenland was reached. Few details of that agreement have emerged.

Last week, technical talks started between the U.S., Denmark and Greenland toward an Arctic security deal. The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland had agreed to create a working group during a meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio before Trump made his tariff threats.

Seventeen New Yorkers have died outdoors in recent weeks amid freezing temperatures, which are expected to dip again this weekend. Local homeless advocates urged the city Friday to flood the streets with extra outreach workers.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined a a homeless outreach team in Manhattan on Tuesday amid freezing temperatures. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Seventeen people have died outdoors in New York City over the last two weeks amid a stretch of unusually cold weather—and with frigid temperatures on the way again, homeless advocates are urging the city to deploy more outreach teams to bring unhoused people inside.

“With this weekend’s wind chills expected to fall well below zero, the City must immediately bolster measures to prevent further loss of life,” The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said in a joint statement Friday.

This should include, “flooding the streets with additional outreach workers,” the groups said, expanding capacity at warming centers and drop-in sites, and ensuring people can access shelter even if they don’t have a government ID. They also called for “clear communication with all public and private hospitals” about allowing unhoused people to seek refuge in emergency and waiting rooms during what’s known as a “Code Blue” emergency.

“Hospitals must coordinate with the Department of Homeless Services to ensure that no one without a warm place to go is discharged or released to the streets, regardless of health status,” the advocates said. “More lives are at stake.”

Since Jan. 19, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Wednesday, the city’s outreach teams have placed more than 1,100 people into shelters or Safe Havens—facilities with fewer restrictions to entry, often preferred by unhoused New Yorkers who’ve had bad experiences with traditional shelters and are reluctant to enter the system. The city opened one such facility early this week in response to the cold, adding 106 single-room occupancy beds in lower Manhattan.

Emergency responders removed 20 people to hospitals involuntarily, the mayor said. The city also expanded its number of warming centers and mobile warming buses (locations can be found here.) “We will continue to do everything in our power to get every New Yorker into a shelter where they will be safe and they will be warm,” Mamdani said.

The City Council will hold an oversight hearing on Tuesday to examine the administration’s response to the extreme cold. The weather also prompted the Department of Homeless Services to twice postpone its annual HOPE count, in which volunteers canvas the city to track the number of New Yorkers sleeping on its streets.

“It’s tough. It’s freezing out here,” said Rose Williams, who said she’s been street homeless for the last 10 years.

Williams doesn’t trust the shelter system and is reluctant to share her personal information with city workers. She told a City Limits reporter who was accompanying an outreach team that she might consider entering a Safe Haven.

But for now, she’s been sleeping on the E train with a friend, Michael, and the two look out for one another to stay safe. “Everybody says ‘stay warm!’ Where are we going to stay warm at?” Williams said. “It’s nice they say that but … you know.”

Here’s what else happened in housing this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

The cold stretch has also led city tenants to lodge a record-high number of complaints for lack of heat and hot water. During the last week of January, 30,000 tenants called in, the most heat complaints ever recorded in a seven-day period, according to City Limits’ reporting.

Residents at NYCHA’s Isaacs Houses will start voting next week on what funding model they want for their development.

More than 700 homes at Beach 41st Street Houses in Rockaway will switch to electric heating and cooling, which officials say will reduce pollution and offer more reliable service than NYCHA’s aging, fossil fuel-powered boilers. 

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

The rise in cold-related deaths prompted calls for Mamdani to revisit his decision to end city “sweeps” of public homeless encampments. But the new mayor told Gothamist that none of the recent fatalities have been people living in encampments, and reiterated his criticism of “sweeps” as ineffective.

The city is moving ahead with a new rule that critics say will make it harder for people to enter Safe Haven shelters, The City reports.

How Pinnacle’s bankruptcy “triggered a citywide wave of tenant organizing,” via Jacobin.

Tenants and advocates are pushing state leaders to increase funding for supportive housing programs in the upcoming budget, WRGB Albany reports.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post NYC’s Deadly Cold Spell Continues, And What Else Happened This Week in Housing appeared first on City Limits.

With her own refugee community in mind, St. Paul City Council Member Nelsie Yang is organizing East Siders to shine their lights across Lake Phalen on Saturday in a symbolic gesture against Operation Metro Surge.

Residents plan to spell the words “MN > ICE” with a Hmong heart symbol across the lake shortly after sundown.

Since early January thousands of federal immigration officials have detained illegal immigrants and in some cases legal residents in the Twin Cities. Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by immigration agents in encounters last month in Minneapolis.

The gathering will begin at 5 p.m. Saturday at the Lake Phalen beach, 1400 Phalen Boulevard. Yang, in a written statement, noted the Payne-Phalen neighborhood is 45% Asian, 14% Black and 9% Latino, making it one of the most culturally diverse communities in the state.

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