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El Niño Means It’s Warmer Than Usual. No El Niño? It’s Still Warmer Than Usual

By Eric Simons, Bay Nature
The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center creates all kinds of forecasts for the United States. Familiar and unfamiliar variables, short-term and long-term time scales, pretty much anything you might wonder about and lots of things you probably don’t, the Prediction Center has an outlook for it: drought, rain, monsoon, El Niño and La Niña, Madden-Julian Oscillation, storm tracks and, of course, temperature. The temperature outlooks for the United States are based on estimating the probabilities of three-month mean temperatures being above or below a 30-year average. The output is a series of groovy, swirly maps that look like this one, for December-January-February 2016:
Read the complete story at Bay Nature.

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Lawsuit to Reform S.F. Bail System Hits Snag — but Will Continue

By Alex Emslie, KQED News Fix
A federal judge in Oakland has dismissed a host of motions that would have fast-tracked a constitutional challenge to the use of monetary bail in San Francisco, but she allowed a Washington, D.C., group to continue a civil rights lawsuit that could have a nationwide impact. The organization Equal Justice Under Law brought the lawsuit in October on behalf of two low-income women arrested in San Francisco but never formally charged. The lawsuit alleges Riana Buffin’s $30,000 bail and Crystal Patterson’s $150,000 bail amounted to a punishment that unequally hits poor people, in violation of the 14th Amendment guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law. 
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix. 

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Will Super Bowl Benefit San Francisco’s Homeless — or Just Displace Them?

By Liza Veale, KALW Crosscurrents
Super Bowl 50 is about to touch down in the Bay Area. While the game is taking place in Santa Clara, San Franciscans will host many of the visiting fans and fanfare. Starting this Saturday, a very temporary, very commercial event center will pop up on the last four blocks of Market Street and across the waterfront. It’s called “Super Bowl City presented by Verizon.” The area will be blocked off for a seven-day festival of games, food and marketing gimmicks. It’s open to the public, but apparently that doesn’t mean everyone is allowed to be there.

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‘Shrimp Boy’ Lawyer Claims Judge Shielded San Francisco Mayor in Corruption Probe

The lead attorney for Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, the reputed Chinatown gangster who was convicted of murder and a long list of other crimes two weeks ago, is now alleging that a federal trial judge failed to disclose a conflict of interest, and that he downplayed evidence implicating Mayor Ed Lee in a sprawling public corruption investigation. » Read more

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S.F. Supervisor Scott Wiener: Homeless Tent Camps ‘Need to Go Away’

By Ted Goldberg, KQED News Fix
San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener says the city needs to find a prompt and “humane” way to eliminate tent encampments that house a growing number of homeless people. The growing presence of tent camps in San Francisco “represents our city’s failure to provide adequate housing/shelter and assistance for those who want help, as well as a failure to make clear to those who refuse help that tents on our sidewalks and in our public spaces are unacceptable” Wiener wrote in a letter last week to the heads of six city agencies. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix. 

Public Press Receives $35,000 INNovation Fund Grant

We’re thrilled to announce that the San Francisco Public Press is receiving a $35,000 INNovation Fund grant to expand outreach programs through community organizing, collaboration with local groups and hosting regular public events to expand audience engagement. The INNovation Fund, administered by the Institute for Nonprofit News, was established in 2014 with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation “to spur business innovation and experimentation focused on audience engagement and long-term sustainability in nonprofit newsrooms.” The Democracy Fund contributed $200,000 to the fund, which allowed nearly twice as many organizations to receive grants in the current round. We are grateful to INN, the Knight Foundation and the Democracy Fund for their support.

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Dramatic Divide Between Cops, Protesters at S.F. Police Commission Meeting

By Alex Emslie, KQED News Fix
There was more than one crowd gathered to speak about the fatal officer-involved shooting of Mario Woods at Wednesday’s meeting of the San Francisco Police Commission, and the division was palpable. In one corner, a group of about 100 off-duty San Francisco police officers stood with their union reps and attorneys. Groups calling for a federal investigation into the Woods shooting and murder charges for the officers involved filled the other side of the room. 
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.  

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A Tale of Two Markets

As high-price food arrives in tech epicenter, city program brings basic, fresh options to nearby Tenderloin
Food justice. It’s a buzzword for access to wholesome, fresh foods for people with limited budgets and nutritional options. The contrasting corner stores that now serve both sides of Market Street show that disparities persist in San Francisco. » Read more

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High Housing Prices Undercut Aid Programs

Rental, health, child-care initiatives offer little help in relentless real-estate boom
In 1999, during the last tech startup boom, about one-third of San Francisco households were putting more than half their pay toward rent or a mortgage. That was already well above the longtime expectation of federal policymakers that Americans spend less than 30 percent of their gross income on housing. » Read more

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How San Francisco Plans to Shield Residents From Runaway Prices

Many public policies in San Francisco are designed to take the edge off the city’s extra-high cost of living, including rent control for most tenants and free, clinic-based medical care for low-income residents and workers. But the city has been slow to react to the red-hot housing market, which has pushed the cost of living past what more than half of city residents can afford, according to federal norms. » Read more