Caltrain's days may be numbered as its taxation opportunities dry up
The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "Caltrain, faced with financial ruin as it runs a near-empty commuter rail line along the Peninsula, may have to shut down altogether.
Officials made the grim prediction Tuesday after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declined to introduce a 1/8-cent sales tax measure for the November ballot — a vital lifeline that would have generated $100 million a year. It needed approval from four transit boards and Boards of Supervisors in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. By opting not to support the measure, the San Francisco supervisors effectively scuttled it.
Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Shamann Walton had previously voiced opposition to Caltrain’s governance structure, saying they want to separate the rail line from the San Mateo County Transit District, which manages and operates the rail system for a three-county Joint Powers Board. They say the two other counties served by Caltrain, San Francisco and Santa Clara, should have more control of its leadership and operations."
Speaking of Caltrain, the BART is projecting $1B in losses over the next 3 years as it looks to the feds for a financial lifeline
The Chronicle's RACHEL SWAN: "The chief of BART expects the rail system to lose $975 million over three years as sales tax revenues sink and people avoid mass transit — a scar of COVID-19 that could permanently change the way Bay Area workers commute.
“We need help,” General Manager Bob Powers said during a virtual rally Tuesday that included a dozen leaders of major transit agencies, among them the Metropolitan Transportation Authorities of New York and Los Angeles County. The agencies banded together to plead for up to $36 billion in emergency funding as the Senate debates the next coronavirus relief package.
Transit agencies across the nation are convulsing from what could be a long-term economic crisis: In many cities, riders show no signs of returning, cleaning costs have shot way up, and the sales tax revenues that sustained public transportation are plummeting."
Ghost of Prop 209's past haunts this year's ballot
Capitol Weekly's JOAQUIN ROMERO: "Proposition 209, the constitutional amendment intended to prevent discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex in areas like public education and contracting, was approved by California voters a generation ago.
In November, they will decide whether to get rid of it.
California lawmakers, in a decision that marks yet another move in a decades-long, back-and-forth debate about the appropriate role of affirmative action, decided in June to place the repeal before voters on Nov. 3. It will appear as Proposition 16."
ICE rescinds rule that would send international students home for online classes
Sasc Bee's ASHLEIGH PANOO: "Amid mounting lawsuits from universities and colleges in California and beyond, the Trump Administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would force international students to return to their country if they could not attend school in-person in the fall or risk deportation, the Associated Press reported.
The announcement was made at a federal lawsuit hearing against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security brought on by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A lawyer representing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said officials would pull the rule, which was announced July 6, and “return to the status quo,” the AP reported."
California wants your HMO to foot the bill for COVID-19 testing
The Chronicle's CATHERINE HO: "With coronavirus cases surging and the need for testing at an all-time high, California officials are putting pressure on major health insurance companies to help finance the fight against the pandemic.
The state Department of Managed Health Care will soon issue new regulations requiring health insurers to pay for coronavirus testing for most patients, state officials said Tuesday. They hope the move will lead to large hospitals, clinics and other health care providers conducting more testing at a time the public needs it the most.
“It will reinforce and support our delivery system, clinics, hospital systems, to be able to test more and test more confidently so it’s widely available,” said California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly."
Your blood type and why it's of vital importance during the pandemic
The Chronicle's ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: "A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that coronavirus risk may be tied to blood type, and that people with Type A blood fare worse — both in risk of contracting the disease and dealing with its complications.
But a lot of Americans don’t appear to know their own blood type.
A survey last year by medical testing company Quest Diagnostics found that only 57 percent of American adults knew whether they were A, B, AB or O. That compares with 74 percent who could remember their Wi-Fi password."
READ MORE related to Pandemic: California man said he had a 'cure' for coronavirus. He was lying, the DOJ says -- Sac Bee's KATE IRBY
Back to school without masks and social distancing? Blatant stupidity, according to the masses
LA Times's ANH DO/SARA CARDINE/HANNAH FRY: "Recommendations approved by the Orange County Board of Education to welcome students back to campuses without increased social distancing in classrooms or the mandatory use of masks were met with a fierce backlash from educators and parents Tuesday, highlighting the larger divide in the county over the use of face coverings and other coronavirus protections.
How to reopen schools has become a major political battle, with President Trump pushing educators to get kids back into the classroom despite a surge of new COVID-19 cases and concerns that in-person instruction is simply not safe. Los Angeles, San Diego and a growing number of other communities in California are putting off reopening plans, citing the coronavirus spike and a lack of testing and contract tracing.
The debate in Orange County has been different."
Will students fill clasrooms in the fall? Newsom says it's district-dependent
Sac Bee' HANNAH WILEY: "The Los Angeles Unified School District is waiting to open schools for in-person learning.
The Orange County Board of Education wants to run forward, preparing to hold a full schedule of classes this fall with no requirements that students wear masks.
Sacramento schools are trying something in between."
Financial aid app rates soar among foster youth
EdSource's ASHLEY A SMITH: "California’s foster students, for the first time ever, have surpassed high school peers in applying for federal student aid.
The milestone is considered significant because just completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, can put a foster student on a path for college, informing the student of how much aid to expect but also alerting prospective colleges of the student’s needs.
This past academic year, 64.5% of 2,582 high school seniors in foster care submitted a FAFSA, compared to 56.6% of all high school seniors in the state, according to John Burton Advocates for Youth, a nonprofit organization that advocates and supports homeless and foster youth."
Coronavirus continues wreaking havoc at San Quentin prison as the infection reaches 200 staff and kills 10 inmates
Sac Bee's MICHAEL MCGOUGH: "More than 2,000 inmates at San Quentin have tested positive for the coronavirus and 10 have died, with at least three deaths reported since Saturday.
Two inmates who had been hospitalized outside the prison died Saturday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement Monday, bringing San Quentin’s COVID-19 death toll to nine at that point. An additional death added to CDCR’s online tracker Tuesday morning brought the prison’s death toll to 10.
The most recent three inmates who died of the virus have not been identified. Three of the first seven to die were condemned inmates on death row."
Speaking of prisons and public safety, multiple organizations continue their 'defund' movement by proposing a 'people's budget.'
Sac Bee's MOLLY BURKE: "“Whose budget? Our budget!”
Chants could be heard between speakers outside of Tuesday’s Sacramento County Board of Supervisors meeting at the county administration building downtown, where a coalition of organizations hosted a news conference calling for the divestment of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
The coalition included Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action, Anti-Police Terror Project, Black Justice, Building Healthy Communities, Decarcerate Sacramento, Justice2Jobs, Sacramento Area Congregations Together (ACT), Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Sacramento, The Center at Sierra Health Foundation and United Way California Capital Region. Sacramento City Councilwoman-elect Katie Valenzuela also spoke at the event."
Apple wins landmark EU court case over $15B in taxes
AP: "A European Union high court ruled Wednesday that technology giant Apple does not have to pay $15 billion in back taxes to Ireland, as the EU’s executive commission wants.
The European Commission had claimed in 2016 that Apple had an illegal sweetheart tax deal with Irish authorities. But the Luxembourg-based General Court said Wednesday that ”the Commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage.”
“The Commission was wrong to declare” that Apple “had been granted a selective economic advantage and, by extension, state aid,” said the Luxembourg-based court, which is the second-highest in the EU. The ruling can only be appealed on points of law."
