APEC will bring the world's most powerful leaders to S.F. This is what they will talk about
The Chronicle, STAFF: "The upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in San Francisco is expected to be a jam-packed week of policy advancements, idea-sharing and diplomacy, including a critical meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Top priorities for the leaders of 21 economies — including the United States, the Russian Federation, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, South Korea, China and Mexico — will be some of the biggest challenges facing the world right now, including climate change, trade competition, equitable growth and grappling with new technologies like artificial intelligence."
READ MORE -- ‘Bloom loop’? S.F. looks to clean up streets — and reputation — ahead of APEC summit -- The Chronicle, RACHEL SWAN; ‘They just said we had to go’: S.F. clears homeless hot spots ahead of APEC -- The Chronicle, J.D. MORRIS/KEVIN FAGAN; Exclusive: Russian officials to attend APEC in S.F. amid war in Ukraine, U.S. says -- The Chronicle, ROLAND LI
CA stem cell program CEO abruptly resigns
Capitol Weekly, DAVID JENSEN: "The chief executive officer of California’s $12 billion stem cell and gene therapy program, Maria T. Millan, resigned abruptly this week, leaving what is the largest such state research effort in the nation without even an interim leader.
Millan gave no reason for her departure nor did the agency itself. Her last day at work will be next week, Nov. 17."
Spending on lobbying firms already tops $222 million in 2023
Capitol Weekly, BRIAN JOSEPH: "Special interests paid firms more than $77 million to lobby California state government in the third quarter of 2023, according to a Capitol Weekly analysis of lobbying firm reports.
That doesn’t include all of the money spent on lobbying during the third quarter; lobbying firm reports don’t capture wages and expenses for in-house lobbyists, for example."
READ MORE -- Oil companies top big year in lobbyist spending -- CALMatters, JEREMIA KIMELMAN
‘Market is in chaos’: California lawmakers, commissioner spar over home insurance reforms
The Chronicle, JULIE JOHNSON: "The race to prevent more insurance companies from fleeing wildfire-prone California is creating political tensions between the state’s congressional delegation and Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.
On Monday, 32 federal lawmakers from California led by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove (Sacramento County) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D- San Jose, sent a letter to Lara, urging him to use his authority “to require that the insurance industry provides adequate, affordable coverage in every part of the state.”"
Last nuclear power plant in California may run for another 20 years. Here’s what changed
Sacramento Bee, MACKENZIE SHUMAN: "PG&E has filed its relicensing application to keep California’s last nuclear power plant running 20 years beyond its scheduled closure date.
The application was submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday morning and comes a year and two months after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 846 to allow extended operations at the 2,200-megawatt Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in coastal San Luis Obispo County."
Get your COVID and flu shots together ahead of Thanksgiving, CDC urges
The Chronicle, AIDIN VAZIRI: "Getting COVID-19 and flu shots at the same time is not only safe but might also improve community uptake, according to a new study. The research, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, is the first to use real-world data to explore the impact of administering these vaccines concurrently.
Analyzing data from 3.4 million U.S. adults between August 2022 and January, the research focused on the bivalent mRNA COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer and last year’s seasonal influenza vaccine. The findings support a previous recommendation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to administer both vaccines together, which relied primarily on safety data from clinical trials."
Congress debating $850,000 for CapRadio, but Sacramento State questions how to spend it
Sacramento Bee, DAVID LIGHTMAN, SAM STANTON: "Congresswoman Doris Matsui has included an $850,000 appropriation for Capital Public Radio’s proposed move downtown in a House bill now under debate, but how the troubled operation will spend the money and whether it actually moves is still unclear.
The Sacramento Democrat originally sought $2 million for the CapRadio project. Republicans control the spending process in the House, where the amount was whittled down to $850,000."
California lawmakers call UC, CSU response to antisemitic incidents ‘woefully inadequate’
Sacramento Bee, ANDREW SHEELER: "It has been a month since the militant group Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,000 people, kidnapping hundreds more and provoking a massive counter-attack that has led to thousands of Palestinian deaths in Gaza.
In that time, both the University of California and California State University systems have seen an increase in antisemitic incidents — including physical abuse, intimidation, hate speech and online harassment."
Though critical to the economy, California’s young workers toil in low-wage work
CALMatters, ALEJANDRA REYES-VELARDE: "More than 2 million people ages 16 to 24 are working in California — about the same as the population of Houston — making up 12% of the workforce. They comprise a critical portion of the state’s economy, according to a new report by the UCLA Labor Center.
But many young people earned low wages, worked long hours — often while going to school — and lacked sufficient worker protections and benefits. These hardships may impact their financial future and the state’s economy for years to come, said researchers who examined the years surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, 2019 to 2021."
Column: The Hollywood strikes are finally over. But we won’t repair the damage anytime soon
LA Times, MARY MCNAMARA: ":The Hollywood strikes may be over, but in many ways the pain has just begun.
For reasons of their own — Greed? Stupidity? Master of the Universe arrogance? — the studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, decided this spring that it was perfectly acceptable to force the entertainment industry, the state of California and the entire country to suffer through a combined 191-day work stoppage before they would offer contracts acceptable to the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, whose negotiating committee on Wednesday approved a tentative deal that would finally end the actors’ walkout."
S.F. could soon start the biggest infrastructure project in its history. Here’s what it will cost
The Chronicle, JOHN KING: "San Francisco and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could soon embark on the largest infrastructure project in the city’s history — preparing the bay shoreline for sea level rise, an endeavor that could last decades and cost more than $10 billion.
Four years after studies began, the Port of San Francisco is poised to sign off on the Army Corps’ release of a draft plan on how best to protect 7.5 miles of urban waterfront from the potential impact of climate change."
A father and son shot, dismembered and burned. This is the dark side of California cannabis
LA Times, PAIGE ST. JOHN: "In a small square crypt behind frosted glass in subtropical Michoacán is incontrovertible proof of the cost of California cannabis.
The tomb just within the high cemetery gates of the Panteón Municipal de Pátzcuaro, flanked by sunflowers in twin blue vases, holds all that can be found of Ulises Anwar Ayala Andrade."
Elon Musk almost needed SFPD wellness check after ‘breakdown,’ getting booed at Dave Chappelle show
BANG*Mercury News, MARTHA ROSS: "Elon Musk reportedly suffered a mental breakdown after facing angry boos at Dave Chappelle’s San Francisco show in December 2022, which added to the billionaire’s fears that his reputation as a tech visionary had been damaged by his seemingly chaotic moves in buying and running Twitter, the once iconic social media platform he rebranded as X.
Musk’s mental breakdown is being reported by Ben Mezrich, the author of a new book, “Breaking Twitter,” which covers the billionaire’s haphazard acquisition of X, Insider reported."
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak hospitalized in Mexico City, source says
CNN: "Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was hospitalized in Mexico City on Wednesday, a source from the organizers of the World Business Forum (WBF), an event he attended in the country’s capital, told CNN En Español.
The source said Wozniak, 73, was taken to the hospital at 3 p.m. local time after fainting minutes before his participation at the event."
S.F. housing authority suing a private contractor for ‘bait and switch’ costing the city millions
The Chronicle, J.K. DINEEN: "A private company that paid $32.4 million to take over the beleaguered San Francisco Housing Authority’s Section 8 program failed to live up to the terms of the three-year contract, leaving behind a mess of incomplete and inaccurate paperwork and costing the city millions of dollars that could have been used to improve the lives of some of the city’s poorest residents, according to the draft of a lawsuit expected to be filed on Thursday.
The authority is suing Nan McKay & Associates, or NMA, for breach of contract, arising from a series of failures on NMA’s part to deliver on the terms of its contract to manage the Housing Choice Voucher Program — formerly known as “the Section 8 program” — from 2019 to 2022."
Family sues over slaughter of pet goat by Shasta fair. Now, California officials suing them
Sacramento Bee, SAM STANTON: "Seventeen months after Shasta County deputies and fair officials tracked down a 9-year-old girl’s pet goat and had it slaughtered after the girl backed out of a 4-H auction, California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office is countersuing, placing the blame on the girl’s mother.
In filings in Sacramento federal court Tuesday, Bonta’s office asked for the dismissal of a lawsuit over the seizure of Cedar the goat and said the federal court does not have jurisdiction over the matter."
Seven in 10 Californians say kids growing up there will be worse off
Bloomberg, LAURA CURTIS: "Seven out of 10 Californians think kids growing up in the Golden State will be financially worse off than their parents, according to a statewide survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.
The 71% of adults who share the grim outlook is a record high for the survey, which is in its 25th year. Just 50% of Californians held the same view five years ago."
VTA purchases $76 million tunnel boring machine for BART’s San Jose extension
BANG*Mercury News, GRACE HASE: "The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority is all in on its plans to build a roughly five-mile long tunnel under downtown San Jose and Santa Clara for its Silicon Valley BART extension after officials announced this week it had purchased a $76 million tunnel boring machine.
The custom-made machine was ordered from German company Herrenknecht and will be manufactured, assembled and tested in Germany before its disassembled and shipped in pieces to Santa Clara County. It will then be reassembled at the project’s West Portal/Newhall Yard located between the San Jose airport and Santa Clara University where work is expected to begin in 2025."
