Organizing for change: How some activists are responding to police violence
Why did Oakland’s Measure QQ fare so much better than other youth vote propositions in California?
November 16, 2020 Elena Neale-Sacks Oakland’s Measure QQ, which allows 16-year-olds to vote in school board elections, became the sole youth vote measure in California to pass in this election, with over 67% of the vote. San Francisco’s Proposition G—which would have let 16-year-olds vote in all city elections—is projected to fail by a margin…
Read MoreIn LA, smooth voting (so far) after primary stumbles
BY ELENA NEALE-SACKS OCTOBER 30, 2020 For thousands of voters in Los Angeles County, the primary last March was a debacle. A glitch in the new electronic voting system, compounded by the inability of election workers to rectify problems, meant that many voters waited in lines for up to three hours to cast their ballots. Some…
Read MoreCalifornia facing a “moderate” risk from right-wing militias
BY NAHIMA SHAFFER NOVEMBER 3, 2020 Just five days ahead of Election Day, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra issued a bulletin to law enforcement about state laws that prohibit voter interference and intimidation. But how likely is it that voters will face threats, or even violence? And where? California has been identified as one of the states with…
Read MoreIn the Bay Area, hope and anxiety
BY BRIAN HOWEY AND STEVEN RASCÓN NOVEMBER 5, 2020 As President Trump and his supporters moved to stop the counting of mail-in votes in key battleground states yesterday, local activist groups greenlighted rallies in several Bay Area cities. Their message was simple: count every vote. Anxious, scared, but cautiously optimistic, hundreds of protesters peacefully gathered in parks and…
Read MoreVoting at 17? Not so fast
BY ELENA NEALE-SACKS NOVEMBER 6, 2020 A proposal to give younger people a greater voice in elections was resoundingly rejected by about 55% of California voters. By some measures Proposition 18, which would have allowed 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections if they turned 18 by the next general election, should have been a shoo-in. It had…
Read MoreA debunked theory fuels a Trump lawsuit
BY STEVEN RASCÓN NOVEMBER 10, 2020 As if permanent markers didn’t already make enough of a mess, enter #sharpiegate. With votes for Biden mounting, a group of Trump supporters showed up to a ballot counting facility in Arizona’s Maricopa County last Wednesday and cried foul. Their claim: Poll workers were encouraging voters to mark their ballots…
Read MoreAs Election Day neared, conflict in Bakersfield between Trump and BLM groups intensified
BY FREDDY BREWSTER, DEREKA BENNETT AND INJEONG KIM NOVEMBER 5, 2020 Months before Election Day, tensions had been building in Bakersfield between Black Lives Matter supporters and a group of Trump backers calling themselves the 1776 Patriots. They’ve clashed in parking lots, on sidewalks and in the road, leading to three arrests–one of a BLM protester brandishing a firearm,…
Read MoreA free ride, and a chance to vote
BY ELIZA PARTIKA NOVEMBER 4, 2020 Election Day in Vallejo and Benicia offered a new feature: free bus service from the suburban residential areas into polling stations scattered across the two small cities in Solano County on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. From 6:30 a.m. until the polls closed last night at 8:00, the…
Read MoreEpizootic: How Infectious Disease Can Move From Wildlife to Humans — and Back to Wildlife
Lessons from the history of plague in California by Elena Conis and Daniel Roman September 27, 2020 Plague’s story in the U.S. begins 120 years ago, in the basement of the Globe Hotel, a cheap rooming house on Dupont Street in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Wong Chut King, a 41-year-old lumberyard worker who had immigrated from China’s Guangdong Province…
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