Posts Tagged: family

News

New life sought for right-to-die law

A portrait of the late Brittany Maynard, who advocated for California's right-to-die law, is seen at a 2015 hearing of the Senate Health Committee. A Superior Court judge rejected the law as unconstitutional. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

Deborah Kratter sat in her Half Moon Bay home, explaining her decision to move to Washington state to live, and then die with life-ending medication alongside family members when her terminal pancreatic cancer worsens. “My gosh, when the time comes and you can’t be who you are … I don’t see why you should have to lie in a bed and wait to die,” Kratter said.

News

Where are they Now? Pat Nolan

Pat Nolan addresses a 2014 meeting of CPAC <(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

Pat Nolan has Southern California credentials that are about as solid as they come. The future Assembly Republican leader was born into a family that had been in the area for generations. One of his great-grandfathers had been an early settler of the area for whom two cities (Agoura and Agoura Hills) are named. Nolan also played a role in one of the Capitol’s darkest episodes – the FBI’s investigation of Capitol corruption, which included a dramatic nighttime raid on the building in the summer of 1988.

News

Where are they now? John Dunlap

Former state Sen. John Dunlap. (Photo courtesy Napa Valley Register/J.L. Sousa)

The California Legislature’s longest-lived political dynasty was the Coombs-Dunlap family, which included four generations and stretched over 120 years. The last legislator from the family was Sen. John F. Dunlap, who at nearly 95 is currently the fifth-oldest living former California state legislator.

News

An LGBT ‘caucus’ for Capitol staff

A gathering of gay rights activists at the state Capitol. (Photo: Karin Hildebrand Lau)

Bish Paul descended into Empress Tavern’s basement downtown and was greeted with a surprise. Over 50 capitol staffers mingled beneath the brick arches a block from the state Capitol. LGBT aides and allies drank and chatted, discussing Sacramento’s LGBT community and shared Capitol connections.

Opinion

Needed: Food safety rules for meal deliverers

A ready-to-eat meal kit. (Photo: Process, via Shutterstock)

OPINION:Across the Sacramento region, color-coded placards tell diners whether a restaurant passed a food safety inspection. In some counties, you can even use a smartphone app to check an eatery’s safety rating before you head to dinner. But for meal kits delivered to our homes from services like Blue Apron, safety standards can be as opaque as the cardboard box the food arrives in.

Opinion

Illness doesn’t discriminate — and neither should health care

Elementary school students in a California classroom. ((Photo: Monkey Business Images)

Right now California has the opportunity to lead the nation in one of the most pressing issues of our time: immigration reform and health for all. Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a budget that will offer Medi-Cal access to all children, regardless of immigration status, sometime next year. While this is a significant investment in

News

Is the governor house hunting?

The governor's mansion, now a state historical park, in downtown Sacramento at 16th and H Streets. (Photo: Kensly, Google Earth)

California’s iconic, 138-year-old governor’s mansion, commanding a busy downtown intersection less than a mile from the Capitol, is getting spruced up and may even become home, once again, to California governors.

News

CalPERS urged to shun Obamacare ‘Cadillac Tax’

Calpensions: Employer and employee groups are urging CalPERS to “undertake all efforts” to avoid the “Cadillac Tax,” a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans imposed in 2018 by President Obama’s health care law, a CalPERS staff report said this month. But it’s far from clear that one of those efforts will be Gov. Brown’s proposal to give state workers the option of a low-cost plan with a high deductible, even though the administration mentions the looming penalty tax as a reason for offering the plan.

Opinion

Fracking’s health impacts must be addressed

An oil derrick at work in Kern County, 2013. (Photo: Christopher Halloran)

OPINION: Faced with the decision of whether or not hydraulic fracturing (fracking) should be approved in New York, the state’s Commissioner of Health Dr. Howard Zucker publicly asked, “Would I let my family live in a community with fracking? The answer is no. I therefore cannot recommend anyone else’s family to live in such a community either.” In California, some 5.4 million people (14 percent of the state’s population) live within a mile of at least one of the state’s total of 84,000 oil and gas wells, according to the NRDC.

Opinion

Clean energy policies provide jobs, training

OPINION: Now that oil industry fear-mongering over gasoline prices has turned out to be completely phony, it’s time to take a serious look at the real impact of California’s climate change and clean energy policies on communities around our state. Simply put, the news is good and getting better. These successes and stories haven’t been widely shared, however, and we’re hoping to change that.

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