These charts show exactly where San Francisco’s wealthiest people moved in the pandemic
The Chronicle, SUSIE NEILSON: “Where did San Francisco’s wealthiest people decamp to in the pandemic’s first, frightening wave? Ritzy ski towns, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Each year, the IRS collects data on how many people are listed on tax returns filed in a given region, along with the total amount of income reported on those returns. It tracks migration by comparing the addresses people file at from one year to the next, calculating the total number of people moving from one region to another and the total amount of income moving between those regions.
Previously the Chronicle reported that because of San Francisco’s steep population loss — the city lost 4.5% of individuals listed on tax returns, or 39,000 people, according to the IRS data — people who left San Francisco by the time they filed their 2019 tax returns took about $10.6 billion with them, while people entering the city made just $3.8 billion in total, a net loss of nearly $7 billion.”
University of California faces calls to reduce barriers for transfer students
EdSource, MICHAEL BURKE: “To fix what critics say is a confusing and discouraging system, the University of California is under pressure to create a new admissions guarantee program for community college transfer students.
Currently, six of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses have transfer admission guarantee programs, which smooth the path from a community college to UC if students take the right courses. But each campus has different course and grade requirements for those programs, and the guarantees are limited to certain majors. Three of UC’s most competitive campuses — Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego — don’t have any guaranteed admission programs at all.
The Campaign for College Opportunity, a college access group that has often sponsored major legislation related to transfers, says it’s time for a more streamlined and student-friendly process that would guarantee transfer students a spot in the UC system if they meet certain criteria.”
Lightning-caused wildfires prompt evacuations in Humboldt, Trinity counties
The Chronicle, KELLIE HWANG: “A collection of wildfires in Humboldt and Trinity counties in the northwest part of California has prompted a series of evacuation orders.
The Six Rivers Lightning Complex, which began as a dozen lightning-caused blazes on Friday, consisted of eight active fires burning in “steep, rugged terrain” and encompassed 1,287 acres with zero containment as of Sunday evening, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
In Trinity County, many residents in the unincorporated community of Sayler, about 50 miles east of Eureka, were ordered to evacuate. State Route 299 remained open, but Campbell Ridge Road off the highway was closed.”
In California, abortion could become a constitutional right. So could birth control.
RACHEL BLUTH, CapRadio: "Californians will decide in November whether to lock the right to abortion into the state constitution.
If they vote “yes” on Proposition 1, they will also lock in a right that has gotten less attention: the right to birth control.
Should the measure succeed, California would become one of the first states — if not the first — to create explicit constitutional rights to both abortion and contraception."
Inside the abortion clinic ‘setting women free all day long’ in post-Roe Arizona
LA Times, CINDY CARCAMO/GINA FERAZZI: “Fifteen women, one man and a baby cooing in a stroller were already lined up outside Camelback Family Planning when it opened on a recent summer morning.
By 7:30 a.m., it was 95 degrees. Monsoon season summoned an oppressive humidity. Mosquitoes hovered, eager to feed.
People kept showing up and waiting outside — sometimes for hours — to seek an appointment at the only abortion clinic in Arizona still offering surgical procedures up to 23 weeks and six days of pregnancy.”
Facing extreme heat and drought, young Californians cope to beat climate anxiety and doom
LA Times, MELISSA GOMEZ: “When he was 6 years old, Sim Bilal began to have nightmares of floods pouring through his South Los Angeles home.
The bad dreams started when he first watched Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” a seminal documentary about human-driven global warming, with his parents. For years, he struggled with severe anxiety over the fate of the planet. For a time, he would return from school and lie in bed, feeling powerless over the growing climate crisis.
“I’m not a very emotional person, but this is such a huge existential issue,” said Bilal, 20. “It’s really debilitating.””
Why is Lyft bankrolling this California ballot measure on electric cars?
The Chronicle, DUSTIN GARDINER: “California voters could decide in November to hike taxes on wealthy people and earmark the money for climate projects. But the effort has been bankrolled by an unlikely cheerleader: Lyft, the ride-hailing app that contributed to an increase in emissions from cars.
Lyft has poured more than $15 million into the campaign for Proposition 30, a ballot measure to raise the income-tax rate for wealthy people to pay for programs to get more drivers into electric cars.
The company’s involvement has divided Democrats who otherwise tend to be aligned over the state’s ambitious goals to reduce heat-trapping emissions that exacerbate climate change. Many environmentalists and building labor groups support the measure, while Gov. Gavin Newsom and the teachers unions oppose it.”
Asian Americans sue Siskiyou County and its sheriff, alleging racial bias
LA Times, ANH DO: “Four Asian American residents have filed a class-action lawsuit against Siskiyou County and its sheriff, alleging widespread racism in traffic stops, access to water and enforcement of cannabis-related property liens.
In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Sacramento on Wednesday, the plaintiffs accuse Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue and other county officials of “a sweeping campaign to harass and intimidate Hmong and other Asian Americans.”
They also allege that they have been wrongly blamed for criminal activity involving cannabis cultivation and that officials have made it “difficult or impossible for Asian Americans to live and travel peacefully in Siskiyou County.””
California childcare providers fight to ‘retire with dignity’
LA Times, MACKENZIE MAYS: “Renee Kuykendall woke up at 4 a.m. to prepare for the arrival of her first client. She won’t be done with her last client of the day until 11 p.m.
In her home in Antelope, just outside of Sacramento, she makes enough eggs, sausage, grits and toast for 13 people, to be served at 7 a.m. She checks on the frogs in the fish tank — a crowd favorite — and makes sure her house is spotless; she’s recently had a problem with boogers smeared on the walls.
Kuykendall, 60, has operated a daycare business out of her home for nearly 20 years. When the long workdays become too hard, she will be able to stop and still be financially sound, thanks to retirement savings from a prior career with the federal government.”
Abortion rights activists want a national leader. Is Kamala Harris up to the job?
LA Times, NOAH BIERMAN: “As Democrats celebrated an abortion rights win last week, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke confidently from the center of an ornate room at the White House compound, surrounded by Cabinet secretaries and other top officials, with President Biden chiming in remotely while sidelined by the coronavirus.
It was the kind of prominent role many expected Harris to assume when she took the oath of office 19 months ago — one that has so far eluded her.
Harris’ opportunity in the spotlight — albeit on a sleepy summer afternoon — came courtesy of voters in reliably conservative Kansas, who voted overwhelmingly in a statewide referendum hours earlier to protect the state’s constitutional right to an abortion.”
Could this COVID program help reduce the California housing crisis?
CALMatters, MANUELA TOBIAS/JEANNE KUANG: “Section 8 vouchers have been one of the federal government’s landmark responses to unaffordable housing for half a century. But too often in California, families sit on a waitlist for years only to see their once-golden ticket expire before they can find a home.
A fresh batch of emergency vouchers became available last year to address growing housing insecurity during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic — and local and federal officials watching their rollout believe the new vouchers’ features already offer some promising solutions to a broken system.
Housing choice vouchers, added in 1974 to Section 8 of the federal Housing Act of 1937, allow low-income tenants to pay only 30% of their income toward rent and utilities while Uncle Sam shoulders the rest. These vouchers have helped pay rent for more than 300,000 households in California this year, totaling $1.9 billion in assistance.”
Californians are staying infected with the coronavirus for a long time. Here’s why
LA Times, RONG-GONG LIN II/LUKE MONEY: “Health officials recommend that anyone infected with the coronavirus isolate for at least five days. But for many, that timeline is becoming overly optimistic.
The isolation period, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortened in December from 10 days to five, is more a starting point than a hard-and-fast rule in California. According to the state Department of Public Health, exiting isolation after five days requires a negative result from a rapid test on or after the fifth day following the onset of symptoms or first positive test — a step not included in federal guidelines.
But many people don’t start testing negative that early.”
Can COVID rapid tests really detect if you’re contagious with new omicron variants?
The Chronicle, ANNIE VAINSHTEIN: “The alarming spread of omicron subvariants — particularly BA.5, which has quickly become the dominant coronavirus strain in the U.S. — has again put a spotlight on how well COVID-19 rapid antigen tests work at this stage in the pandemic.
While some early research and anecdotes have suggested that at-home test kits may not be as good at spotting omicron’s sneaky subvariants, Bay Area infectious disease experts say the rapid antigen tests are still an effective way to diagnose infection.
But they add that variants like BA.5 only drive home the importance of using rapid antigen testing as effectively as possible to avoid a false negative result.”
‘Your body is being taken over by this thing you don’t understand’: One man’s monkeypox ordeal
The Chronicle, JACKIE FORTIER: “Two days after Kevin Kwong flew home to California from New York, his hands itched so badly, the pain jolted him from sleep. He thought the problem was eczema.
“Everything started rapidly getting worse,” the Emeryville resident said. “I started to get more spots, on my face, more redness and they started leaking fluid. The rash expanded to my elbows and my hands and my ankles.”
It took Kwong, 33, six virtual appointments with doctors and nurses, one call to a nurse hotline, a trip to an urgent care clinic, two emergency room visits, and two incorrect diagnoses before an infectious disease specialist diagnosed him with monkeypox in early July.”
A state program to provide children’s hearing aids for uninsured families falls short
CALMatters, ELIZABETH AGUILERA: “A little over a year after California launched a program to provide hearing aids for an estimated 2,300 children annually who lack health insurance, it has provided devices to only 39 children.
There have been multiple problems with the Hearing Aid Coverage for Children Program. The application process is cumbersome and families with partial insurance coverage are not eligible. For physicians, reimbursement time is long, reimbursement rates are low, and some don’t know about the program or choose not to participate, according to parents and advocates who lobbied the state to fund children’s hearing aids.
The California Department of Health Care Services, which oversees the program, refused to say why the program had served so few children in its first year and refused to let CalMatters interview anyone who works with the program. Instead, department spokesperson Anthony Cava emailed that the agency “has already implemented several key improvements to HACCP to increase access, including implementing an online directory to locate a provider for HACCP-eligible children. DHCS is committed to continuing the ramp-up of this important program, through program operations and outreach activities, to expand the program’s reach.””
‘Fight Asian hate’ marchers take to S.F. streets in passionate call for justice
The Chronicle, SAM WHITING: “The campaign against violent attacks on Asian elders erupted Sunday onto Columbus Avenue, where a raucous drum corps and protesters’ chants of “Fight Asian hate” distracted outdoor brunches and disrupted the flow of double-decker tour buses.
“We don’t need your donations. We don’t need your social media posts,” said Hudson Liao, founder of Asians are Strong, at a Washington Square rally in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. “We need you to get out and get active. We need to occupy Columbus Avenue.”
And for a time early Sunday afternoon, as many as 200 marchers did that, loudly wending their way along six blocks of Columbus, with a police escort, to Portsmouth Square in Chinatown. Traffic stopped so the marchers in the street could pass through.”
