(LR) San Francisco Mayor London Breed and California Assembly member David Chiu during the announcement of Chiu's appointment to city attorney on Wednesday September 29, 2021 in San Francisco, Calif. (Daniel Montes/Bay City News)
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced Thursday that legal action is being taken against an “immigration consulting business” for allegedly charging immigrants for fraudulent legal services they were not permitted to provide.
The motion to enforce an injunction was filed Monday and would prohibit Leonard Lacayo and Lacayo & Associates from providing immigration services.
Lacayo is accused of falsely representing himself as an attorney and defrauding immigrants into “paying for bogus legal services and putting many at risk of losing their legal rights,” the city attorney’s office said.
Lacayo & Associates has been operating in San Francisco since 1986. Lacayo is reportedly a notary public, but is not licensed to practice law or registered as an immigration consultant.
In 2017, the city attorney’s office filed an injunction prohibiting Lacayo & Associates from providing immigration-related services and ordering Lacayo to pay restitution and civil penalties.
"Leo Lacayo has demonstrated that he has no respect for the law or for the immigrant communities he purports to serve. For years, he has profited from vulnerable immigrants by taking their money and putting them at risk," Chiu said.
“Despite being barred from providing immigration services, Lacayo has conveniently pretended that our injunction against him does not exist. We are seeking to put an end to this illegal conduct and protect immigrant communities from this scammer,” he added.
Chiu accused Lacayo of providing services he was not qualified to provide and at times failing to provide service to clients. The city attorney also said the businessman has “tricked” hundreds of immigrants into paying him to handle their immigration matters.
Lacayo denies any of the accusations and adds that he only works as a notary and with tax preparation. He said that a lawyer in the same building does work with immigrants.
Following the court order, the firm continued to operate, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported that more than 400 immigration applications and petitions were filed at the firm’s address after Lacayo & Associates was banned from providing immigration-related services.
"These uninterrupted activities show a blatant disregard for the rule of law," Chiu's office said.
The motion filed Monday seeks to enforce and extend the injunction for five years.
The legal action also hopes to ensure that Lacayo's most recent clients have access to their immigration documents and are informed that their cases are not being handled by licensed attorneys.
Chiu is also seeking fines, fees and access to the company's transaction records.
Lacayo called the motion a “witch hunt” motivated by “political reasons.” He said he will continue to operate his tax preparation business as he has since the court order.
"My office is open," Lacayo explained. "It has never been closed."
The investigation was assisted by the San Francisco Bar's Center for Justice and Diversity, the State Bar of California's Office of Chief Trial Counsel and the San Francisco Bay Area Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Chiu's office said.
A federal jury on Wednesday convicted a former Twitter manager of selling private user information to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Ahmad Abouammo, Twitter’s former media partnerships manager for the Middle East/North Africa region, was found guilty of multiple crimes, including acting as a foreign agent of Saudi Arabia without notifying the Attorney General, money laundering, conspiracy, and falsifying records.
The verdict against the 44-year-old former Walnut Creek resident follows a two-week trial, according to an announcement Wednesday from the office of U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds of the Northern District of California.
Evidence at trial showed that Abouammo accepted bribes in exchange for accessing, monitoring and transmitting Twitter users' private information to officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royal family, according to the announcement.
Hinds said the Justice Department does not tolerate misuse of personal information or attempts by foreign governments to recruit secret and malicious agents into American technology companies.
"In this case, the government demonstrated, and the jury found, that Abouammo violated a sacred duty to keep Twitter customers' personal information private and sold customers' private information to a foreign government," he said.
“Abouammo’s decision to accept bribes in exchange for providing a foreign government with protected client information could have incalculable damaging consequences.”
Prosecutors said the recipient of the private information is known for targeting people seen as opponents.
“Abouammo secretly acted as an agent of a foreign government seeking dissenting voices,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “This verdict shows that the Department of Justice will not tolerate any act of transnational repression and will hold accountable those who help hostile regimes extend their reach to our shores.”
The department's announcement said that according to evidence presented at trial, Abouammo began receiving bribes from a Saudi Arabian official as early as December 2014, including one in 2015 for $100,000 deposited into a bank account in his father's name in Lebanon.
In October 2018, FBI agents interviewed Abouammo at his residence about his involvement in the scheme with officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Evidence at trial showed that Abouammo provided false information to FBI investigators and falsified an invoice for one of the payments he received from the foreign official.
Abouammo was arrested on November 5, 2019, but did not leave his job at Twitter until May 2021. Shortly afterward, he received another $100,000 in his bank account in Lebanon.
Abouammo faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for the charge of acting as an agent of a foreign government and 20 years in prison for each of the other charges. Additionally, each charge carries a fine of up to $250,000 and additional periods of supervised release after the prison term.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Colin Sampson and Eric Cheng of the Northern District of California and Trial Attorney Christine Bonomo of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case with assistance from Beth Margen and Alycee Lane. The indictment is the result of an FBI investigation.
Since 1989, when Ayatollah Rullolah Khomeini put a price on his head for the publication of the novel The Satanic Verses, the story of Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie has been a story of tireless struggle for freedom of expression.
The controversial book fictionalized the life of the Prophet Muhammad and an interpretation of the Koran that the Iranian regime considered blasphemous, so it issued a fatwa calling for his assassination, with a reward for whoever carried it out.
Rushdie spent nearly 10 years in hiding, living under the pseudonym Joseph Anton. In fact, the novel that bears that title deals with that dark period. He went into exile in the United States in 2000, but even in this country he remained under protection and surveillance until, little by little, he began to relax security measures. He even traveled to Mexico in 2014 to participate in the Hay Festival Xalapa that year, and in 2018 for a discussion organized by the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, in Monterrey.
About that presentation at the Hay Festival Xalapa 2014, I wrote:
«He wears an impeccably cut suit, silver like the hair left at his temples and in his goatee. He walks calmly. Sir Salman Rushdie now walks around without bodyguards everywhere. Gone are the days when Ayatollah Khomeini put a price on his head for having written The Satanic Verses, although the fatwa did not die with the leader who imposed it.
But he has chosen to live without fear. Perhaps the only thing left from those days is a persistent tic that makes his nose twitch constantly, causing a peculiar movement of his upper lip as well. Or perhaps he was born with this.
On that occasion, Rushdie spoke about his relationship with Latin American literature, from Carlos Fuentes to García Márquez and Juan Rulfo, of course:
«Thanks to his love of good food, Salman Rushdie met Carlos Fuentes in Tequila, at a luncheon that the Guadalajara International Book Fair entertained its special guests with a couple of decades ago. And it was Fuentes, whom he describes as a great friend, who once put him on the phone with the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude. “I had an extraordinary conversation with García Márquez because he really didn’t like to speak English, although he understood more than he gave himself credit for, and my Spanish is terrible but I understand a little. So we had a little French in common. So we conversed in three languages, but in my memory there were no language problems, we just talked. It was a conversation of about 25 minutes.”
An avid reader of Italo Calvino, Milan Kundera, Gunter Grass and Gabo, Rushdie confesses that the first time he read Pedro Páramo he did not find it exceptional. He blames this disappointment on the first English translation of Juan Rulfo’s work. “But 20 or 25 years later there was another, much better translation. I read it again and was impressed. In Pedro Páramo you can see the beginnings of Macondo. You can see that it is not such a long journey from Comala to Macondo.”
It seems a cruel joke of fate that this morning, when Rushdie went to the Chautauqua Institution, an educational institution in New York State, to take part in a conversation on the subject of the United States as a safe haven for exiled writers and other artists under threat of persecution, he was the victim of a cowardly attack.
Rushdie was repeatedly stabbed (once in the neck) while being introduced by Henry Reese, co-founder of the nonprofit City of Asylum, which is a residency program for exiled writers.
As I write this, Salman Rushdie is undergoing surgery. The former president of PEN USA, an organization that provides asylum to writers and journalists who are victims of political and/or religious persecution, is now fighting for his life.
From Peninsula 360 Press, this space for freedom of expression, we wish you a full and speedy recovery.
Irma Gallo She is a reporter and writer. In addition to Península 360 Press, she has collaborated with Letras Libres, the University of Mexico Magazine, Lee Más Gandhi Magazine, Gatopardo, Este País Magazine, Sin Embargo, El Universal, and Newsweek in Spanish. Her most recent book is When the Sky Turns Orange. Being a Woman in Mexico (UANL/VF Agencia Literaria, 2020). Twitter: @irmagallo IG: @irmaevangelinagallo.
Redwood City Mayor Giselle Hale will not seek re-election to the Redwood City Council, she announced on social media. While she said it has been an honor to serve residents, she hopes there will be more “mom nights” for her family.
"Dear Redwood City. It is with mixed feelings and after much deliberation that I am announcing that I will not be seeking re-election to the Redwood City Council," Hale said in a letter posted on social media.
She noted that her family chose Redwood City to put down roots because of its diversity, inclusion and multigenerational nature, and in that sense, she noted that her family is a priority.
Letter shared by Giselle Hale on their social networks
“I took on this job wholeheartedly, throwing myself into the task with intense rigor. Of course, this has meant time away from my family. At a very young age, the girls were inclined to ask, “Is this mommy night or hangout night?” Over time, too many nights were “hangout nights.” I look forward to having more “mommy nights” with them and fixing that balance at this point in their lives.”
She said, “It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve our residents for the past 8.5 years, first as a Planning Commissioner, then as a Councilmember, and now as Mayor.”
He noted that during that time, Redwood City has become a regional leader in housing production and combating displacement.
“Where other cities have shied away from their housing obligations, Redwood City has embraced the idea of welcoming and keeping people of all ages, incomes and backgrounds here. We’ve created a vision for a transit district to ease traffic and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, just as we see the signs of climate change here at home. And we’ve led the way in creating child care with innovative new programs that will keep our children safe and our families working,” he said.
He added that in that time, mental health needs have also been addressed in a unique way. “I am immensely proud of our work together and am grateful to my current and former colleagues and staff.”
Hale said all of this has been achieved “because our Council has put aside our differing opinions to unite around the shared needs of the community.”
While she made it clear that she ran for office without a long track record in Redwood City, the community embraced her and her family “has grown along with our love for her.”
“I look forward to continuing to be involved in the many issues that challenge our community. We have much work to do to ensure that this incredible place we call home remains so for generations to come,” he stressed.
Finally, she thanked her two daughters and her husband, Brian, for supporting her desire to serve. “They have been more than a 50/50 partner in this adventure.”
“I hope my journey inspires others to come forward. Leadership is not meant to be held in place, it is meant to be flowing, shared and carried along by others. Leadership leaves empty seats at the table and invites others to take them,” she said.
Notably, Hale dropped out of her California Assembly campaign in late June due to political attacks against her, which she said had affected her family's mental health and happiness.
Through her Twitter account, the mayor detailed that the "difficult" decision was made during a "much-needed" vacation, and that during that time off, she saw how deeply said career impacted the mental health and happiness of her husband and two daughters.
Redwood City police arrested 5 people last week in connection with possession of a loaded firearm and other crimes.
Four juveniles were arrested on suspicion of offenses including possession of a firearm, possession of metal knuckles and resisting, as well as obstructing or delaying an officer, according to the Redwood City Police Department.
Fernando Hernandez Maldonado, 22, was arrested on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
On August 5, at approximately 3:42 p.m., undercover officers were conducting security screening in the downtown area of Redwood City when they observed four juveniles and one adult passing a loaded gun back and forth.
The undercover officers alerted uniformed officers to coordinate contact with the suspects, and when the officers approached the five suspects, they fled the area.
After a brief foot chase, all five suspects were arrested and taken into custody.
Police recovered a loaded .40-caliber Glock pistol with a 20-round extended magazine, a pair of brass knuckles and a pellet gun that had been modified to look like a real weapon from the group.
Zoe Carrasco “fell in love” with reproductive health care while working at a community clinic in East Oakland.
Zoe Carrasco graduated from UC San Francisco School of Nursing. (Photo courtesy of Zoe Carrasco)
She was in her early 20s at the time. Today, at 36, Carrasco has graduated from the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing. A self-described Latina, Carrasco wants to bring comprehensive reproductive care to her Spanish-speaking community, including abortion in California.
However, Carrasco eventually learned that her education would not make her “clinically competent,” a classification that allows a practitioner to perform aspiration abortions, which requires a hands-on physical procedure in the clinic. To get that, she will have to complete additional training and find work at a clinic that supports recent graduates.
"If you really want to get trained in clinical abortion," Carrasco said, "you really have to go outside the school system and find it for yourself."
During her three years in UCSF's nursing and midwifery program, Carrasco attended a 90-minute didactic lecture on medication abortions and a skills lab where she performed first-trimester abortions using papayas.
She was fortunate enough to get 16 hours of observational clinical abortion training at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital during the summer of 2021. Her classmates typically received only four to eight hours. She was able to pick up extra hours by filling in for classmates who couldn’t cover shifts.
On one occasion, Carrasco took it upon herself to further expand her abortion training at a clinic in New Mexico, logging 35 hours in four days, thereby doubling the hours of clinical experience provided by her school program. There, she took advantage of being able to be in the room during every aspect of an aspiration abortion, whereas her nursing school only allowed observation the day before in preparation for the procedure.
Additionally, during her time in New Mexico, Carrasco was able to follow a patient through her experience with the abortion procedure, thus witnessing a doctor-patient relationship from start to finish. In school, Carrasco received counseling training on how to approach patients with compassion and neutrality, but this was real, she said.
“There’s so much courage behind a decision like this,” Carrasco said. “And everyone at that clinic really honors that.”
She also said she admired how the clinic emphasized trauma-informed care and preserving patient autonomy.
Advocating for abortion education
Meredith Klashman wants to fight for her patients inside and outside the hospital. Klashman, a rising third-year medical student in the joint medical program at the University of California, Berkeley and UCSF, just finished her term as co-president of the UC San Francisco chapter of Medical Students for Choice.
Meredith Klashman is a medical student in the UC Berkeley-UCSF joint medical program. (Photo courtesy of UCSF)
Working with the group Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health, Klashman’s organization created the Reproductive Health Elective, which is open to all UCSF programs. The elective aims to fill gaps in abortion and reproductive education instruction within UCSF’s core curricula, and covers medication abortions, an aspiration abortion skills lab, and disparities in access to reproductive health care.
Adamant that abortion training is crucial for nursing and medical students, the student organization advocates for more clinical experience in abortion clinics. Abortion training is extremely important when working in an emergency room, for example, Klashman says.
In an emergency room, a patient might come in with a mistimed medical abortion, a self-managed abortion, or just an abortion on their medical record.
“Doctors need to do a little more due diligence in terms of empowering their patients to make decisions,” Klashman said.
Klashman became passionate about women's reproductive health justice while studying urinary tract infections due to water exposure. Klashman was surprised and disappointed to discover that UC Berkeley's research program did not focus on women's UTIs, despite the preponderance of such cases among women.
Supporting scholars who prioritize reproductive justice
One of the faculty members of the Reproductive Health Elective, and the fifth Black tenured professor at the UCSF School of Nursing, Monica McLemore co-directs the Abortion Care Training Incubator for Outstanding Nurse Scholars (ACTIONS) program. In this capacity, McLemore supports predoctoral and postdoctoral fellows at the School of Nursing who prioritize reproductive justice.
Monica McLemore is an associate professor of Family Health Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of UCSF)
“Abortion care is about making sure that people’s emotional, informational and spiritual needs are met as they make a decision about their reproductive health. That screams nursing,” McLemore said. “One of the core principles of nursing is helping individuals and families manage transitions.”
McLemore has provided abortion services at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital for nearly 20 years, and said she always knew teaching would be an important part of her career.
“As a Black nurse who has had a nursing license since 1993, not only have I never had a Black person looking out for me as a member of the healthcare profession, which I’m still very bitter about,” McLemore noted, “but I have never actively had a Black nursing faculty member.”
Promote a policy to increase training on abortion
Bethany Golden is a Registered Nurse, Certified Nurse Midwife, and Predoctoral Fellow at UC San Francisco through ACTIONS, attended Yale School of Nursing, and has worked in private practice, community health, hospitals including NYU Langone Health and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, at Planned Parenthood in California, and even abroad.
Bethany Golden is a registered nurse, certified nurse midwife, and predoctoral fellow at UC San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of Reynolds Production)
Despite being a doctor for nearly 20 years, Golden has never been able to receive training in aspiration abortion.
“I asked to learn,” she said. “No one would teach me because there are few places to get that clinical training.”
Striving to address this on a systemic level, Golden said she became a policy advisor for Training in Early Abortion for Comprehensive Healthcare, an organization that teaches reproductive health care and abortion clinics in California and beyond, commonly known as TEACH.
As of October 2021, through ACTIONS, Golden was also one of the physicians working with the California Abortion Future Council, which recommends the California Reproductive Health Services Corps created under Assembly Bill 1918.
AB 1918 aims to recruit, train, and retain a diverse workforce by establishing scholarships, stipends, and loan repayment for reproductive health professionals. Those who qualify must commit to completing abortion training and commit to working for three years in California, prioritizing underserved areas.
"My hope would be that what we're seeing is lifelong professionals and, as a result, a really impactful expansion of our reproductive health care workforce," said Cottie Petrie-Norris, the bill's author.
The bill has already secured $20 million in funding in the current state budget to go toward scholarships, stipends and loan repayment, and is expected to soon pass the state Senate and receive Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature and take effect in January.
Golden looks forward to the day when she can return to her student career and learn how to perform aspiration abortions.
"I'd like to be in a practice where I could offer that service, so I'm hoping to benefit from the expansion of abortion training as well," Golden said.
Nursing and medical students, professors and nurse practitioners continue to fight for personal and policy changes to abortion care, even though Roe v. Wade and the national right to access abortion have been struck down. Carrasco said the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month was a moment of mourning, but also of gaining momentum.
“There is loss, but there is also a desire to move forward and be resilient, especially as someone who is a new supplier,” Carrasco said.
Warmer, drier weather conditions brought on by climate change could reduce California's water supply by up to 10 percent by 2040 without strong action, prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce California water strategies to help the state adapt to more extreme weather patterns.
Thursday's announcement follows $8 billion in state investments over the past two years for California water strategies that include helping to store, recycle, desalinate and conserve the water it will need to keep up with the increasing pace of climate change, generating enough water in the future for more than 8.4 million homes by 2040.
The actions, described in a strategy document published by the Administration called "California's water supply strategy, Adapting to a warmer, drier future"They are calling for investing in new sources of water supply, accelerating projects and modernizing the way the state manages water through new technology.
This approach to water supply management in California recognizes the latest science indicating that the Western United States is experiencing extreme and sustained drought conditions caused by a warmer, drier climate.
Warming weather means more of the rain and snowfall California receives will be absorbed by dry soils, consumed by thirsty plants and evaporated into the air. This leaves less water to meet the state's needs.
“The best science tells us that we must act now to adapt to California’s water future. Climate change means that drought won’t just stick around for two years as it has historically – extreme weather is the new normal here in the Western United States and California will adapt to this new reality,” said Governor Newsom at the Antioch Brackish Desalination Project.
“California is launching an aggressive plan to rebuild the way we source, store and deliver water so our children and grandchildren can continue to call California home in this warmer, drier climate,” he added.
To help offset the water supplies California could lose over the next two decades, the strategy prioritizes actions to capture, recycle, desalinate and conserve more water. These actions include:
Create storage space for up to 4 million acre-feet of water, which will allow us to take advantage of big storms when they occur and store water for dry periods.
Recycle and reuse at least 800,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2030, enabling better and safer use of wastewater currently discharged into the ocean.
Unlock 500,000 acre-feet of water through more efficient water use and conservation, helping to offset water loss due to climate change.
Making new water available for use by capturing stormwater and desalinating ocean and saltwater in groundwater basins, diversifying supplies, and making the most of high flows during storms.
These actions are broadly identified in the Newsom Administration’s Water Resilience Portfolio, the state’s master plan for water released in 2020, but will be accelerated given the urgency of climate-driven changes.
To advance the infrastructure and policies needed to adapt, the strategy calls on the Legislature to streamline processes so projects can be planned, permitted and built more quickly, while protecting the environment.
The 2022-23 budget includes an additional $2.8 billion for drought relief to hard-hit communities, water conservation, environmental protection for fish and wildlife, and long-term drought resilience projects.
El inicio de las clases en California y EE.UU está cada vez más cerca, sin embargo padres de familia y la comunidad en general han manifestado sus preocupaciones en torno a las medidas sanitarias contra la COVID-19.
El Departamento de Salud Pública de California –CDPH por sus siglas en inglés– ofreció una rueda de prensa para esclarecer las dudas y preocupaciones de la comunidad acerca del regreso a clases en esta parte del país.
Actualmente, más de 15 mil personas en California se contagian diariamente con el virus SARS-COV-2, sin embargo, el doctor Sohil Sud del CDPH, señaló que para el ciclo escolar 2022-2023 existen más métodos y herramientas que permitirán reducir el impacto en la salud de los estudiantes y miembros de la comunidad escolar, al tiempo que comentó que las escuelas del estado pueden manejar la enfermedad de una manera sostenible y segura.
Brooks Allen, director ejecutivo del Consejo Estatal de Educación, comentó que se ha trabajado para hacer seguro el regreso a clases para los estudiantes, profesores, trabajadores y la comunidad escolar.
Una de las recomendaciones en las que las autoridades sanitarias y educativas han hecho hincapié es en la aplicación de la inoculación a los niños en edad escolar para protegerlos, al igual que a los profesores, trabajadores y la comunidad escolar de sufrir complicaciones en caso de contagiarse, pues actualmente las tasas de hospitalización de pacientes pediátricos sigue siendo alta.
Yurina Melara, secretaria de prensa multiétnica de VaccinateAll58, señaló que más del 50 por ciento de niños en edad escolar han recibido al menos la primera dosis de la inoculación en contra del COVID-19.
Asimismo, señalan la importancia de que en caso de que los niños presenten síntomas de la enfermedad causada por el virus SARS-CoV-2, estos permanezcan en casa y den los avisos correspondientes a quienes estuvieron en contacto con ellos para evitar la propagación del virus.
A pesar de que no existe un mandato en relación con el uso de mascarillas o la aplicación de la vacuna, las autoridades sanitarias recomiendan que tanto niños como adultos reciban la inoculación, además de utilizar mascarillas en lugares públicos.
Hasta la fecha 9.7 millones de pruebas caseras han sido entregadas a todos los distritos escolares, sin embargo medio millón de estas siguen en camino. Además, las autoridades se han coordinado con los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades para entregar 6 millones de pruebas entre los meses de abril y junio.
Los expertos recomendaron que debido a que actualmente estamos enfrentando una de las variantes más transmisibles del virus, se utilicen estas pruebas antes del regreso a clases con el objetivo de identificar posibles casos positivos a la enfermedad y evitar la propagación del virus.
Asimismo, Sul comentó que las pruebas caseras si identifican la variante BA5 de Omicron.
Las autoridades señalaron también que con el objetivo de proteger a la comunidad escolar, los trabajadores de las escuelas que no están completamente vacunados deben realizarse la prueba una vez a la semana.
¿Los padres de familia deben preocuparse por la viruela símica?
En relación con la viruela símica, el doctor Sohil Su comentó que a pesar de ser un asunto de suma importancia, esta es menos transmisible que la enfermedad causada por el virus SARS-CoV-2, pues los patrones de transmisión son muy diferentes ya que requieren contacto físico, sin embargo señaló la importancia de atender a la comunidad LGBTQ+ pues ha sido una de las más afectadas.
«Tenemos que condenar rotundamente la homofobia en las escuelas y en todas partes», puntualizó Sul, pues sentimientos negativos han afectado a las comunidades debido a los orígenes y patrones de transmisión de enfermedades como la viruela símica y el COVID-19.
A partir de este miércoles, todas las familias de estudiantes de escuelas públicas de bajos ingresos ‒3.4 millones en todo el estado – ahora pueden acceder a cuentas de ahorro para la universidad creadas a nombre de sus hijos, con inversiones iniciales de entre 500 y mil 500 dólares.
The program CalKIDS, lanzado este miércoles, invierte 1.9 mil millones de dólares en cuentas para niños en edad escolar de bajos ingresos en los grados 1-12 y para niños recién nacidos a partir del 1 de julio de 2022.
«California les está diciendo a nuestros estudiantes que creemos que son material para la universidad; no solo lo creemos, sino que invertiremos en ellos directamente», dijo el gobernador Gavin Newsom. «Con hasta mil 500 dólares, estamos transformando vidas, generando mentalidades universitarias y creando riqueza generacional para millones de californianos».
«Estoy orgulloso y emocionado de ver finalmente a CalKIDS en acción», precisó el asambleísta Adrin Nazarian. «Mi objetivo con este programa era cerrar la brecha entre la desigualdad de riqueza y el alto costo de la educación. CalKIDS ampliará el acceso a la universidad a través de los ahorros al proporcionar a cada niño nacido en el estado de California un depósito inicial en una cuenta de ahorros para la universidad ScholarShare 529».
Además, precisó que, gracias a la inversión y la expansión del Programa para hacer que la universidad sea más accesible para los niños de bajos ingresos de California, se realizarán depósitos adicionales para los estudiantes de primer grado de bajos ingresos en todo el estado, con depósitos suplementarios para jóvenes sin hogar y en hogares de crianza.
«Nuestra visión compartida asegura que cada niño en todo el estado tendrá una oportunidad en la educación superior», subrayó.
Hasta mil 500 dólares para 3.4 millones de niños en edad escolar:
Depósito automático de 500 dólares: Estudiantes elegibles de escuelas públicas de bajos ingresos en los grados 1-12.
Depósito adicional de 500 dólares: Estudiantes elegibles de escuelas públicas de bajos ingresos en los grados 1-12 identificados como jóvenes de crianza.
Depósito adicional de 500 dólares: Estudiantes elegibles de escuelas públicas de bajos ingresos en los grados 1-12 identificados como personas sin hogar.
Hasta 100 dólares para niños recién nacidos:
Depósito automático de 25 dólares: cada niño elegible nacido a partir del 1 de julio de 2022.
Depósito adicional de 50 dólares: Aquellos que vinculen una cuenta ScholarShare 529 nueva o existente a la cuenta CalKIDS.
Los californianos pueden comenzar a acceder a sus cuentas a través del portal en línea ahora. En los próximos meses, CalKIDS enviará cartas de notificación a los niños y familias que califiquen con más información.
The civil rights attorney John Burris anunció una demanda federal el miércoles en nombre de una manifestante de Roe v. Wade alegando que mientras estaba en un acto de desobediencia civil, miembros de los departamentos de policía y bomberos de San Francisco le inyectaron un sedante desconocido sin consentimiento.
El 13 de junio, Kareim McKnight y su amiga Amanda Piasecki fueron al partido de los Golden State Warriors contra los Boston Celtics en el Chase Center de San Francisco. No tenían en mente los playoffs, sino la decisión pendiente de la Corte Suprema de EE. UU. de anular Roe v. Wade.
La demanda de derechos civiles presentada contra la ciudad, su policía y los departamentos de bomberos en el Tribunal de Distrito de EE. UU. para el Distrito Norte de California establece que McKnight y Piasecki pagaron sus boletos y trajeron una pancarta que decía: «¿Anular a Roe? Diablos, no», que fue sostenido durante el primer cuarto.
Corearon «aborto a pedido y sin disculpas. Sin este derecho básico, las mujeres no pueden ser libres. Levántense por el derecho al aborto», según un comunicado de la firma de Burris.
Los guardias de seguridad de la NBA rodearon a la pareja y los agarraron de manos y pies cuando llegaron al piso principal. Las dos mujeres continuaron cantando y luego fueron arrastradas fuera de la arena y entregadas a la policía, según los videos de la noche incluidos en la demanda.
Fuera de la arena, Piasecki fue liberada de inmediato, pero las imágenes muestran que McKnight fue inmovilizada y esposada. Un oficial de policía de San Francisco la amenazó con un sedante, a lo que ella se negó rotundamente, y la colocaron en una camilla y la ataron. McKnight dice que de todos modos el personal del departamento de bomberos de San Francisco le inyectó un sedante.
Photo: Bay City News
«Dar una inyección a un manifestante en contra de su voluntad es impactante e ilegal», explicó Burris, el abogado de McKnight. «No hubo evidencia de que la Sra. McKnight fuera un peligro para ella misma o para cualquier otra persona. No estaba bajo la influencia del alcohol o las drogas, y estaba protestando y haciéndose escuchar. Eso en sí mismo no puede justificar inyectar una sustancia extraña en una persona sin prueba de una necesidad médica o de seguridad, que no fue el caso de la Sra. McKnight».
En la larga carrera de derecho de Burris, refirió que nunca se había encontrado con un manifestante siendo sedado mientras estaba en su sano juicio, no era violento y practicaba la desobediencia civil.
McKnight dice que no le preguntaron sobre condiciones médicas o alergias preexistentes antes de que la drogaran, lo que empuja a Burris a creer que el sedante era mezquino, peligroso y destinado a silenciarla. Espera que este caso obligue a la policía a desarrollar una política estricta a la hora de administrar sedantes.
Jonathan Baxter, oficial de información pública del Departamento de Bomberos de San Francisco, refirió que no podía comentar sobre la demanda pendiente, pero señaló que los paramédicos del departamento están autorizados a administrar el sedante Midazolam cuando una persona está «severamente agitada como para representar un peligro para uno mismo o para los demás».
McKnight dijo que el sedante la volvía lenta y le provocaba dificultad para hablar. Al notar la liberación de su amiga, McKnight, una mujer afrodescendiente, cuestionó los motivos de la policía. Cuando se les preguntó por qué le dieron inyecciones, los oficiales dijeron que era por su seguridad, lo que McKnight dijo que era ridículo y una tapadera para castigarla por protestar en un juego crítico de playoffs.
«Tengo que preguntar», dijo McKnight en un video. «¿Es esto algo que reserva para los negros?».
La policía de San Francisco no estuvo disponible para hacer comentarios. El Departamento de Bomberos de San Francisco remitió las consultas sobre la demanda a la oficina del fiscal de la ciudad, que tampoco estuvo disponible de inmediato para hacer comentarios.
