BAY AREA
San Francisco: Mayor announces $50 million for affordable housing
Ed Lee’s proposed $250 million housing bond has been increased to $300 million the mayor announced, with the extra funds going to affordable housing. District 9 Supervisor David Campos, whose recent proposal for a temporary moratorium on luxury housing in the Mission was voted down by the board of supervisors, called it a “huge victory.” The bond will appear on the November ballot where it will require a two-thirds voter approval to pass.
Facebook founder and wife donate $5 mil to DREAMers
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan have announced that they will donate $5 million through their Dream.US program to create 400 college scholarships for undocumented youth in the Bay Area. The Dream.US will give scholarships of up to $25,000 for four-year colleges or $12,500 for two-year degreees. Recipients must be eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. “If we help more young immigrants climb the ladder to new opportunities, then our country will make greater progress,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post.
CALIFORNIA
Labor Commission rules that UBER drivers are employees, not contractors
The California Labor Commission has ruled that drivers for the ride-sharing service UBER are actually employees of the company rather than independent contractors. The decision will likely dramatically impact UBER and its competitors such as Lyft and Sidecar, who have until this point made billions without having to pay payroll taxes or grant workers basic labor rights such as workman’s comp, unemployment and even minimum wage.
Senate approves health coverage for CA undocumenteds
The highly contested SB4, the so-called “health for all” bill, has been approved by the California State Senate after being somewhat scaled back. The original bill would have given subsidized Medi-Cal to all regardless of immigration status. The new version of the bill will make 240,000 minors eligible to sign up for Medi-Cal, and allow certain low-income adults to sign up for a different program that provides similar services, while those with higher incomes can buy non-subsidized coverage through Covered California, with federal government permission.
NATIONAL
U.S. deports thousands for minor drug offenses, new report reveals
Each year the United States deports tens of thousands of people for minor drug offenses according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. Titled “A Price Too High: U.S. Families Torn Apart by Deportations for Drug Offenses,” the report found that most frequent charges in deportation cases were simple possession, usually of marijuana or cocaine, with more than 34,000 people deported between 2007 and 2012 for possession of marijuana and 41,000 for cocaine. According to the report’s senior researcher, Grace Meng, a number of deportations were for convictions that happened as long as 20 years ago. “What that suggests to me,” she said in a recent interview, “is that immigration authorities were going out looking for people to increase the number of people they had deported with criminal convictions.”
Netfilx to expand Spanish-language programming
Netflix, the popular streaming video streaming service, has announced it has partnered with U.S. Hispanic networks Univision and Telemundo and international network Caracol to bring more classic Spanish-language programming to Latino audiences in the United States. The company, which now produces its own original content, also announced the creation of its first original series en español. The comedic drama “Club de Cuervos” is scheduled to premiere Aug. 7.