News
microclimatesmap.jpg

Street Science: Why the Mission Is Sunny

08.29.2013
|
By

By Daniel Hirsch, Mission Local
We’ve all noticed it. Whether we’re having a barbecue in a friend’s back patio, sunbathing in Dolores Park, or waiting in line for ice cream, we’ve all seen days where there seems to be a perfect circle of blue sky hovering over the Mission – but only over the Mission. We have the famous San Francisco “microclimates” to blame. But what does that mean exactly, and how do they form? The Department of Public Works lists three main microclimates in San Francisco, the Fog Belt that encompasses most of the city’s western neighborhoods, the Transition Zone which includes neighborhoods in the middle such as the Haight and the Marina, and the Sunbelt, which includes the Mission and other eastern neighborhoods.

News
6229_transform.jpg

5 Things You Should Know About the Bay Bridge Closure

08.28.2013
|
By

By Lisa Pickoff-White, KQED News Fix
1. The bridge is closing. By now you’ve heard the news that the Bay Bridge closed Wednesday, August 28, at 8 p.m., and is scheduled to remain closed until next Tuesday morning, September 3, at 5 a.m.
If you need to get to San Francisco International Airport at 2 a.m. Friday from Berkeley, you’re in luck, because BART is running hourly all-night service until Monday night at 14 stations. However, if you face the same challenge after midnight Monday, you need to start looking at alternatives, since BART needs to shut down that night for inspections. (It will reopen at 4 a.m. Tuesday.)
Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.

News
noisebridge.jpg

Homeless Hackers Head to Noisebridge for Shelter

08.27.2013
|
By

By Holly McDede, KALW
Every day, more than two dozen people pass through a hackerspace in San Francisco’s Mission district called Noisebridge. At its broadest, “hackerspace” means a place where people can create and make things better. In practice, that often means computer programming. Because of this, Noisebridge occupies a unique place in the city’s landscape. The tech boom has pushed rents 53 percent higher than than they were a decade ago.

News
v_fernandez_asiandaca_500x279.jpg

Very Few Chinese Youth Applying for Deportation Reprieve

08.26.2013
|
By

By Valeria Fernández, New America Media
A year after a deportation reprieve became available to undocumented youth, analysts are noticing a trend: Very few Chinese immigrants are applying for it. “We suspected this was the case, that there would be low numbers,” said Anoop Prasad, a staff attorney from the Immigrant Rights Program at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco who has worked with many Chinese applicants. Mexican youth make up the largest number of those eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals  and also had the highest rate of applications, with 64 percent or 637,000 applications according to the Migration Policy Institute. But the absence of Chinese youth from the top 20 countries that applied for deferred action came as a surprise to researchers – especially since Chinese rank in ninth place in terms of eligibility. “Even though Chinese are eligible, they’re not applying at a high rate to appear in the statistics the Department of Homeland Security put out,” said Jeanne Batalova, the policy institute’s senior policy analyst and demographer.

From the Newsroom

Public Press News Editor Rich Pestorich Moves On to SFChronicle.com

08.23.2013
|
By

Photo: News Editor Rich Pestorich, Executive Director Michael Stoll, Publisher Lila LaHood, and reporters Ambika Kandasamy and Barbara Grady. I’m writing with some bittersweet news. The sweet: Rich Pestorich, who’s been with us as news editor since the fall of 2010 (issue No. 2) has scored himself a prominent full-time job: online producer for SFChronicle.com! The bitter: Rich will be stepping down as news editor — though he will remain a core Public Press editorial adviser.

News
forclosure.jpg

Foreclosure Rescue Scams Still Common, Warn Housing Counselors

08.22.2013
|
By

By Anna Challet, New American Media
Nonprofit housing counseling agencies and housing rights advocates agree: Foreclosure rescue scams are still common in the Bay Area, and there’s no need for homeowners in distress to empty their pockets paying for private attorneys. When the Tatakamotongas of East Palo Alto were having trouble making their mortgage payments after the sudden death of the family’s primary breadwinner, they decided to seek help with obtaining a loan modification to lower their monthly payments. In looking for legal help, they came into contact with a scammer. “The advice they gave me was ‘Don’t make any more payments at all. The longer you are backed up, the more we can help you.’ And so of course I believed them,” says Mele Tatakamotonga.

News
citycollege.jpg

CCSF Shies Away From Criticism of Accreditation Panel

08.21.2013
|
By

By KQED News Staff and Wires, KQED News Fix
City College of San Francisco officials submitted a formal request for review of a regional panel’s decision to revoke the school’s accreditation, but the request made no mention of recent criticism of the accreditors by the U.S. Department of Education. The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges announced last month that City College’s accreditation would end in July 2014 unless changes are made to the school’s governance structure and finances. However, last week, the Department of Education issued a letter finding fault with the commission’s accrediting process for City College, citing vague instructions for compliance, a lack of faculty members on evaluation teams and a possible conflict of interest between the commission’s president and her husband, who was on an evaluation team. Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.

News
fish.png

Fishermen Harvest Dinner in the Bay – At Their Own Risk

08.20.2013
|
By

By Julia Scott, KALW Crosscurrents
Community outreach workers say a growing number of people – often poor Asians and African Americans – are dining out at the piers. It’s an enticing prospect: Aspiring fishermen on local shores can expect salmon, croaker, sturgeon… even the occasional rock crab, all for free. But there’s a big tradeoff. “Some of the fish that live in San Francisco Bay have mercury in them,” says Margy Gassel of the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. “Actually,” she clarifies, “most fish have mercury in them – and certain kinds of fish have lots of mercury in them.”
Gassel’s worried that mercury, PCBs and other industrial chemicals could make fishermen sick – and that they won’t know until they’re very sick. “People aren’t going to get obviously sick after eating fish, but the contaminants can build up in their bodies and can cause harm,” Gassel says. 
Read or listen to the complete story at KALW Crosscurrents.

News
8487388971_867eb20ca1_z.jpg

California Upends School Funding to Give Poor Kids a Boost

08.19.2013
|
By

By Alan Greenblatt, KQED News 
As the school year begins, districts in cities such as Oakland, Fresno and Los Angeles have not gone on a hiring spree. But they might soon. California has revamped its school funding formula in ways that will send billions more dollars to districts that educate large numbers of children who are poor, disabled in some way or still learning to speak English. It’s an approach that numerous other states, from New York to Hawaii, have looked into lately. But none has matched the scale of the change now under way in the nation’s largest state.

News
prop8.jpg

California Supreme Court Puts Final Nail in Prop. 8 Coffin

08.15.2013
|
By

By KQED News Staff and Wires
The California Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down a petition in which the sponsors of Proposition 8 sought to have the ban on same-sex marriage put back into effect in most of the state. The court, in an order issued in San Francisco, declined to grant a hearing on the petition, which was filed July 12. The court made no comment in the order, which was signed by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. Wednesday’s court action appears to bring an end to pending litigation seeking to stop gay and lesbian weddings in the state, at least for the time being. “The California Supreme Court’s choice not to address the merits of our case, like the U.S. Supreme Court’s choice to avoid the merits, leaves grave doubts about the future of the initiative process in our state,” Andy Pugno, an attorney for Protect Marriage, said in a statement.