Close up of laboratory microscope with DNA gel background image. (Photo: 18percentgrey, via Shutterstock)Directors of the California stem cell agency last week handed out $2 million a minute to nearly 20 organizations during an online meeting that spread the largess from Sacramento in the north to San Diego in the south.
A photo illustration of the California flag presented as a medical mask. (Image: kovop58, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Health care is once again front and center in Congress. And once again Californians will play a critical role in the federal budget debate that could result in the biggest expansion of help to access, afford, and improve health coverage since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act.
Downtown Placerville, Calif. (Photo: Laurens Hoddenbagh, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The recent flurry of stories about small business woes often miss an important part of the picture: Small businesses’ role in helping fund government’s important responsibilities. Consider the City of Placerville. Located in El Dorado County with the original colorful Gold Rush era monikers, the sometimes controversial Hangtown and the more staid Dry Diggings, the city is a tourist draw housing a number of buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.
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.
Immigrant workers harvest strawberries in a Salinas field. (Photo: David A. Litman, via Shutterstock)While we remain in the throes of an increasingly savage pandemic, policy makers at all levels of government are trying to soften the impact of the outbreak on our physical and financial health. But they are not the only ones: A group of little-known organizations are trying to ease the impact on an especially vulnerable community — undocumented immigrants.
An illustration of the concept of privacy and computer use. (Image: mstanley, via Shutterstock)OPINION: I believe in the American Dream because I am lucky enough to be the American Dream. And I’m not alone; there are millions of business owners in California and I imagine some of them share my success story.
Solar panels arrayed in the Mojave Desert. (Photo: Andrei Orlov, via Shutterstock)OPINION: As firefighters from across the West come together to battle wildfires, and legislators meet for their last week of this year’s legislative session, our state’s leadership has before them a real opportunity to take decisive action to help mitigate the climate trends that are weighing on our state today.
The Orange County School of the Arts, a charter school. (Photo: Lunasee Studios, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The story of the Paramount Collegiate Academy’s demise is important because it spotlights an alarming trend: California’s state board is approving charter schools that were denied by local decision makers at a high rate — 71 percent —and a number of those schools have failed, just like Paramount.
A pipette and recepticles used in stem cell research. (Photo: CI Photos)The California stem cell agency has doubled down on its bet on a potentially breakthrough treatment for kidney transplants, raising to $25.4 million its support for a project that is entering its final stages. The hope is that the treatment will not only improve the success rate of kidney transplants but also lead to use in liver, heart and other solid organ transplants.
A photo illustration of court finances. (Rusian Grumble, Shutterstock)California’s courts impose hundreds of millions of dollars of “excessive and disproportionate” fines each year for common infractions, then use much of the money to support their own operations. A blue-ribbon panel examining the system said the fines should be collected by the executive branch — not the courts themselves — to avoid conflicts.