As San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie signed a $15.9 billion budget Thursday, two attorneys tasked with investigating and reporting police misconduct still don’t know whether they will keep their jobs.
Cutting these positions raises concerns that the city is initiating a material reduction in police oversight while simultaneously increasing the San Francisco Police Department’s budget.
The San Francisco Unified School District announced plans in July to open a school offering Chinese and English instruction using private funding, following a parent-led campaign to start a charter school with a similar focus. Proposals to expand bilingual programs in Chinese, which focus mainly on Mandarin, the official language of China and Taiwan, have […]
This episode of our “Civic” podcast explores the history of health professionals, city leaders and community advocates in San Francisco working together to improve education and outreach around hepatitis B, including how to reduce transmission and treat chronic infection.
A West Oakland project aims to test a remediation method that uses plants and fungi to remove or break down contaminants in soil. The experiment would remediate a former auto-wrecking yard and its techniques might be cheaper and safer than the typical method of digging up polluted soil and moving it to a specialized landfill.
The Trump administration is attacking LGBTQ+ rights nationwide, and San Francisco has declared itself sanctuary city for transgender people. But even as the city anticipates an influx of newcomers, older trans adults already living here face discrimination and threats to their health as the federal government cuts funding for crucial programs and erases data about their demographic groups.
Advocates expect LGBTQ+ seniors in particular to be negatively affected by the gutting of Medicaid, funding cuts at every level, and the erasure of key data focused on gender identity and sexual orientation. San Francisco’s population of older adults has been growing rapidly, which strains limited resources.
In Taiwan, the threat of invasion by China is ever present — maybe it will happen tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe never. Video artist Yuan Goang-Ming captures in his work this feeling of dread that pervades even the mundaneness of routine activities.
In “Everyday War,” an exhibit at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum through Aug. 4, Yuan, explores the unsettled and anxious nature of daily life in which violence feels close and security out of reach in more and more parts of the world.
Uber’s use of secretive fare pricing algorithms driven by artificial intelligence lowers drivers’ wages, causes them confusion and uncertainty, and could undermine public safety — all while boosting company profits to record levels.
That’s the conclusion of a new report surveying more than 2,500 Uber drivers and the message sounded by dozens who protested July 1 outside the company’s San Francisco headquarters.
Drivers say the company’s opaque fare-pricing algorithms have been hurting their income and wellbeing. The protesters’ signs echoed conclusions from the report by PowerSwitch Action and Gig Workers Rising, grassroots organizations representing workers and labor interests.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is facing backlash over his $16 billion, 2025-27 budget for significantly cutting police oversight while boosting funding for the Police Department and Sheriff’s Office by $22 million each.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to adopt the budget by July 31.
Lurie’s proposal would eliminate key roles in the city Department of Police Accountability, which is responsible for investigating civilian complaints against police officers and sheriff’s deputies — such as those alleging excessive force, racial bias or unprofessional behavior — and ensuring transparency and accountability in officers’ and deputies’ conduct. The department’s Office of Inspector General will also see crippling cuts.
A new app aims to provide school administrators and teachers in these communities with real-time data that can help them protect students from harmful air pollution. When air quality is especially poor, teachers might keep kids inside during recess or a coach might cancel or move a sports team practice, said Kristina Hill, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Hill developed the tool in collaboration with Charisma Acey, also an associate professor at UC Berkeley, and a focus group of advocates from five Bay Area communities with high levels of air pollution.
The app offers an interactive map where Bay Area residents can see hourly readings of the air quality in their area. It draws on the existing PurpleAir monitor network but adds key improvements like correcting for errors caused by fog and combining data from multiple monitors to paint a clearer picture of air quality in a neighborhood.
With a rise in immigration raids and arrests outside courthouses schools, and at workplaces and other slice-of-life locations — coupled with a slew of Trump policies that whittle away or outright revoke people’s legal status and rights — immigrants across the country, regardless of their status, are increasingly at risk of deportation, detention or the sudden invalidation of legal documents, fueling widespread outrage, fear and uncertainty.
While experts encourage people to familiarize themselves with widely circulated resources like the “Know Your Rights” red card, which offers essential guidance for encounters with immigration authorities, they also emphasize that additional resources are available.
The Public Press has compiled advice from extensive interviews with four immigration attorneys and advocates, and from several workshops and press conferences discussing immigrant rights.
