An illustration of the electorate. (Image: M-SUR, via Shutterstock) With Election Day less than two weeks away, Californians remain divided on a ballot measure that would change how commercial property is taxed. On another closely watched ballot measure, reinstating affirmative action in the public sector has gained slightly since September, but still has less than majority support.
A volunteer cleanup worker plucks a disposable mask from the water. (Photo: Tatyana Aksenova, via Shutterstock)Nearly every morning for the last 12 years, San Francisco native Eva Holman has walked Baker Beach and collected trash. Located near the mouth of the Golden Gate, Baker is the iconic beach where the Golden Gate Bridge’s graceful red arc has provided the dramatic background for innumerable iconic photographs. Holman grew up nearby, and she lives so close to Baker Beach now that it’s essentially her backyard.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom just before a meeting in Sacramento. ((Photo: Matt Gush, cvia Shutterstock)Gov. Gavin Newsom, long a supporter of the California stem cell agency, today endorsed Proposition 14, the November ballot measure to give the agency $5.5 billion more and save it from financial extinction.
The state Capitol in Sacramento, the seat of California government. (Photo: Always Wanderlust, via Shutterstock)Landmark legislation to improve California’s notoriously fractured mental-health system has been passed and sent to the governor in the waning days of a chaotic legislative session disrupted by the COVID pandemic. “This package of legislation is a game-changer,” said Maggie Merritt, executive director of the Steinberg Institute.
Tom Ammiano at a gay rights rally in 2011. (Photo: Pax Ahimsa Gethen, Wikipedia Commons)Tom Ammiano is a San Francisco icon. The first openly gay teacher in San Francisco, he served on the board of San Francisco Unified School District and in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, with future mayor, lieutenant governor and governor Gavin Newsom. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor several times and made his way to Sacramento, where he served in the Assembly from 2008 to 2014.
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.
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.
The Third Street Promenade, an open-air mall in Santa Monica, is completely deserted during the shutdown. (Photo: MSPhotographic, via Shutterstock)Last month, facing the prospect of overwhelmed hospitals and unchecked spread of the novel coronavirus, seven Bay Area county and city health departments joined forces to become the first region in the nation to pass sweeping regulations ordering millions of people indoors and shuttering the local economy.
Bryndon Madison in an airplane restroom on the flight from London to San Fracnisco.Getting back to California from Europe during a global pandemic was certainly not the way I thought my trip would end. In January I arrived in Cordoba, Spain, for a two-and-a-half-month university study-abroad program and that’s where I had been living up until Saturday, March 14.
The top of Sather Tower at UC Berkeley. (Photo: Guangli, via Shutterstock)The University of California is facing court challenges over its use of the SAT and ACT tests to decide student admissions.This comes as a special UC faculty group, the Standardized Testing Task Force, prepares to release its own report on the tests in early 2020.