Author Archives: Public Press staff

By Samantha Young, CALmatters/Justice After a man held a knife to her throat, forced her into her car and repeatedly raped her, Helena Lazaro underwent a painful and humiliating medical forensic examination. The 17-year-old wanted her attacker caught. She never imagined the evidence collected in what is known as a rape kit would sit untouched […]

By Guy Marzorati, KQED News/The California Report Standing in his new apartment, on the top of a two-level building in Oakland, Daniel Yapo admits his journey from homelessness to housing took a lot of help. Yapo spent years bouncing between temporary homes and jail, even spending time living on a roof in nearby Hayward. Service […]

By Marisa Lagos, KQED News Fix/The California Report Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed through two bills Thursday that would punish so-called sanctuary cities and people who re-enter the country after being deported — and would codify into law much of what President Trump has tried to do by executive order. But whether or […]

By Laura Wenus, KALW/Crosscurrents An abandoned industrial building on the southern border of San Francisco’s Mission District is about to become the city’s newest Navigation Center. It’s at 26th Street and South Van Ness Avenue. The shelter is expected to open soon and will only be around for an estimated nine months before it’s removed […]

By Devin Katayama, KQED News Fix/The California Report William Ware sits in a large empty field along the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, shaving his face using a broken mirror. He found himself here after a waterskiing accident in 2009 led to painkiller addiction, and a downward spiral ensued. Ware lost his five-bedroom house in Brentwood, the […]

By Laura Wenus, Mission Local Immigrants who can’t afford to feed their families are facing hunger rather than accepting benefits that rumors tell them could put their hopes of becoming citizens in jeopardy, according to immigration attorneys and those who work with food benefits. “We have asylum seekers who are in homeless shelters and they […]

By Jessica Calefati, CALmatters  California’s new system for funding public education has pumped tens of billions of extra dollars into struggling schools, but there’s little evidence yet that the investment is helping the most disadvantaged students. A CALmatters analysis of the biggest districts with the greatest clusters of needy children found limited success with the […]

By Paul Kleyman, New America Media Amid all of the scoreboard coverage of the Republicans’ American Health Care Act—they have the Senate votes, they don’t have the votes, how many millions will be stranded without insurance—few lines of type have delved beneath the partisan debates as sharply as Christy Ford Chapin did in her New […]

By Dan Brekke, KQED News Fix/The California Report Flex alert: The California Independent System Operator, or Cal ISO for short, has declared a flex alert for Tuesday because of high demand on the state’s electrical grid as the heat wave continues. A flex alert is a voluntary conservation program under which consumers are asked to […]

By Ashley Hopkinson, EdSource Today The budget approved Thursday by the state Legislature responds to a long-sought demand from child care advocates that California raise the income eligibility limit so more low-income families qualify for subsidized child care. The budget for the coming fiscal year requires the Department of Finance to calculate income eligibility for […]