Photo illustration of the coronavirus in California. (Photo: Maridav, via Shutterstock)COVID-19 cases in California are spiking dramatically — more than 6,600 new cases on Tuesday alone — and scientists predict California will double its transmission rate every four to five weeks. On Wednesday, the death toll spiked to 98, bringing to 5,725 the total number of deaths so far.
Jackie Fielder, candidate in the 11th Senate District. (Photo: Fielder campaign)Jackie Fielder is an activist and educator with her sights set on California’s 11th Senate District, hoping in an uphill race to topple incumbent state Sen. Scott Wiener, a fellow Democrat. Fielder is young (25), educated (Stanford University), a person of color (both Native American and Latina), an environmental protester and an activist with a background in grassroots organizing. She describes herself as a Democratic Socialist.
A pushes a gurney stretcher along a hospital corridor. (Photo: Spotmatik Ltd, via Shutterstock)California’s hospitals are experiencing unprecedented financial stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with net losses projected to hit $14.6 billion by the end of 2020. The losses are “way above anything anyone could have anticipated… the costs have been nothing like we have ever seen before,” said Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokeswoman for the California Hospital Association, which represents about 400 hospitals, large and small.
Laura Wilcox, whose shooting death in Nevada County inspired "Laura's Law." (Family photo)Legislation to strengthen California’s 2002 “Laura’s Law,” which gives family members a legal tool to get treatment for their severely mentally ill relatives, has been approved 77-0 by the state Assembly, despite opposition from some California counties, behavioral health directors and a labor union representing employees in local mental-health programs.
Gov. Gavin Newsom at last year's Gay Rights Day parade in San Francisco. (Photo: Sheila Fitzgerald, via Shutterstock)Gov. Gavin Newsom has been riding a high tide of approval from Californians for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he could be heading for stormy weather. California’s tax revenues are projected to decline more than 22 percent and the state estimates that unemployment for the year will hit 18 percent.
Illustration by Quentin Lueninghoener, Fair WarningA federal court trial under way in San Francisco could spell the beginning of the end of water fluoridation in America, potentially affecting drinking water for hundreds of millions of people across the U.S. Although fluoride can occur naturally in water, many water utilities add the chemical with the goal of improving dental health.
Signature gathering during the 2018 election cycle. (Photo: Michael Gordon, via Shutterstock)The $5.5 billion California stem cell initiative is virtually certain to qualify for the fall ballot as the arithmetic of the signature count begins to fall into place. The measure needs only slightly more than the 67 percent of the signatures that remain to be verified as coming from registered voters. The qualification percentage of raw signatures so far is 78 percent.
Empty streets in L.A. during April amid the shelter-in-place rules. (Photo: Time Media, via Shutterstock)Many Californians believe that the worst is yet to come for the U.S. with the COVID-19 pandemic, and less than three in 10 believe restrictions on physical activity in their area should be decreased. Gov. Newsom’s job approval has increased since earlier this year—and most Californians approve of his handling of the pandemic—but his recently released budget plan gets mixed reviews.
Students attending a lecture. (Photo: sirtravelalot, via Shutterstock)Stressed by classes, grades, jobs, personal issues and COVID-19, some California community college students are turning to mental health counseling. But the service is scarce and demand is high. One major study found that community college students reported higher rates of academic impairment due to mental health struggles than students attending than students at the University of California or California State University.
A photo illustration of the coronavirus pandemic and California. (Photo: bekulnis, via Shutterstock)The state of California and its top medical regulator remain mired in a go-slow posture on the regulation of “snake oil” stem cell clinics that are currently riding the COVID-19 crisis to peddle dubious treatments to desperate patients. The marketing surge by the clinics has drawn increased attention nationally, including in prestigious scientific journals such as Cell Stem Cell whose usual fare deals with such things as “Stem Cell Hierarchy in Colorectal Cancer.”