• American Indian and Alaska Native residents in California, Oregon, Arizona, and New Mexico can now access traditional healing practices through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Although the California pilot program only applies to people experiencing substance abuse, it's expected to expand to cover all qualified patients. [Tribune News Service]
• The levels of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere are increasing much more rapidly than in previous years. The average growth rate increased by 3.5 ppm in 2024 compared to 2.4 ppm in 2023 and 2.57 ppm per year over the prior decade. [Live Science]
• Here’s a list of No King’s Day rallies across the Bay Area — San Francisco’s meet-ups include Sue Bierman Park near Embarcadero Plaza as well as the human banner at Ocean Beach followed by Sunset Dunes Park. [ KGO]
• A Michigan woman won $100,00 in Powerball lottery winnings after consulting ChatGBT on which numbers to choose. [NBC Bay Area]

• Authorities arrested one suspect and are looking for a second in connection with a home invasion robbery and shooting in Vacaville Thursday around 2 pm. [KPIX]
• The family of Amin Noroozi, a 17-year-old athlete from Lafayette who died in April after he broke his neck at Stinson Beach, is suing John Muir Health Medical Center in Walnut Creek for gross negligence. [Bay Area News Group]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Local community groups will be rallying in front of City Hall next Tuesday morning prior to SFMTA’s board meeting in the afternoon when the board will make its final decision on Muni service cuts.

San Francisco residents have likely seen the eye-catching flyers around town with the headline Muni Now, Muni Forever! announcing a rally in front of City Hall next Tuesday morning. The aim of the rally is to persuade SFMTA to halt its plans to cut or reduce service along several bus lines and find other solutions for addressing the agency’s current $50 million deficit, which is projected to balloon to $320 million. Following the rally, participants are invited to join the group in providing public comments at the board meeting at City Hall on Tuesday afternoon before the board makes its final decision.

The Muni Now, Muni Forever! campaign was organized by several community groups and activists under the umbrella Transit Justice Coalition, including Senior Disability and Action, which mobilizes and educates seniors and people with disabilities, and Oakland-based Transform, a climate justice group that advocates for equitable affordable transportation and housing.

The coalition is suggesting that rather than cut bus service to cover the deficit, SFMTA extend metered parking into the evening hours or use its reserve fund — or the city’s general fund — to cover the deficit rather than cut bus service. Metered parking on Sundays was initially a proposed option before quietly being taken off the table in February, before the 520,000+ daily Muni transit riders had the chance to weigh in, according to Streetsblog SF and The Frisc.

According to Transform, most of Muni’s funding shortfalls are due to external factors, such as inflation, decline in revenue from parking tickets, and reduced federal aid. Additionally, fares only make up a fraction of SFMTA’s  revenue. Transform points out that Muni’s ridership is steadily rising, with recent numbers reaching 78% of pre-pandemic levels and weekend ridership reaching 92%. SFMTA reported in October that some bus lines have actually surpassed their pre-pandemic numbers, primarily lines that connect neighborhoods, including

• 49 Van Ness: 143% recovered
• 22 Fillmore: 122% recovered
• 14 Rapid Mission: 115% recovered
• 9 San Bruno: 120% recovered
• 19 Polk: 110% recovered
• 12 Folsom/Pacific: 106% recovered

As Lisa Platt, member of the Muni Now, Muni Forever! coalition, told the Examiner, “transit should not take the hit because people are driving personal vehicles less.”

Previously: SFMTA Announces More Proposed Muni Service Cuts, Chopping Parts of 5-Fulton, 9-San Bruno, and 31-Balboa

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Sickened by the seemingly nonstop police killings of black Americans, many Bay Area residents appear ready to assemble in Oakland tonight to rally for justice and an end to police violence. The most recent impetus: The shootings of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana, brutal events both captured, in part, on video shared widely yesterday and today.

A Facebook event — SHUT It DOWN Rally & Action (Sponsored by Live Free & Anti Police-Terror Project) — is quickly gaining traction, and talk of the rally is also bubbling up on Twitter. The rally appears planned for 7 p.m. at 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, or as it's identified on the event page, Oscar Grant Plaza, the unofficial name it took on during Occupy days memorializing the man shot and killed by a BART police officer as he lay face down at Oakland's Fruitvale Station on New Years' Eve, 2009.

"For #AltonSterling and #PhilandoCastile, and for all the women trafficked and exploited by the rapists and murderers in Oakland Police Department and across the Bay Area," the event description reads. "For all who are displaced from their neighborhoods and robbed of opportunity. We march. We act. We Shut It Down."

The reference to Oakland's Police Department and the trafficking and exploitation of women is in regard to the ongoing department scandal that also involves SFPD officers. Many officers allegedly had sex with an underage sex worker, an act that would of course constitute rape, possibly in exchange for information and preferential treatment of the girl, who is now of age and has come forward to local media.

Today, President Obama gave his voice to feelings shared by many Americans. "These fatal shootings are not isolated incidents," he said. "They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve."

Related: From Rodney King To Oscar Grant To Mario Woods, Oakland Attorney John Burris On Taking Cases That Change Police Departments

Hours after the SCOTUS ruled on DOMA and Prop 8 on Wednesday, effectively making gay marriage legal in the state of California, San Francisco erupted into a giant, well-deserved party. The Supreme Court's ruling that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and that Judge Vaughn Walker's original ruling in Prop 8 stands inspired hordes of people, gay and straight, to celebrate in the Castro, ground zero for gay rights.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion on this one, which you can read in full here, and he was joined by Justices Scalia, Ginsberg, Breyer, and Kagan. When decision was revealed, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced to hundreds of people at the City Hall Rotunda, "Welcome to the people's house! This is a historic day for all of us ... We have struggled for many, many years. I want to thank all of you for sharing this moment. Gosh, it feels good to have love triumph over ignorance, equality triumph over discrimination."

Wednesday's ruling comes just in time. This weekend the annual San Francisco Gay Pride Parade takes the city by storm. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to show up this week to take part in the fabulous festivities.

Below, video of last night's action in the Castro.

Meanwhile, in New York City celebrations unfurled outside the Stonewall Inn, where riots in 1969 jumpstarted the gay rights movement.

The concession workers at AT&T Park will protest again today. Why? Well, it's all a part of the wage dispute between Local 2 and the ballpark's concessionaire and Centerplate regarding wage increases, job security, and improved healthcare.

"The demonstration comes three weeks after 750 food and beverage workers launched a one-day strike in their struggle to win job security protections, fair wage increases, and health coverage at AT&T Park," reads the press release. "Despite steep increases in the price of tickets and food items at the ballpark, the concession workers - who are employed by the Giants’ subcontractor, Centerplate - have been left behind."

Sounds reasonable.

Until the issue is resolved, concession workers have asked sans to bring their own food to the ballpark until the dispute is resolved. Even if bringing your own nachos sounds messy. (Though you could get stuff from Public House!)

Read more about the budding brouhaha here.

Previously: Concession Workers Strike Outside AT&T Park Today
AT&T Park Concession Workers Upset That They Aren't Cashing In on Giants' Success

Tomorrow and Wednesday represent a milestone moment for gay rights as the U.S. Supreme Court will review the Prop 8 and DOMA cases to determine the status of marriage equality nationwide. Tonight, head on over to the Castro for a march to show support for equal protection and equal rights. The March4Equality rally is planned to be the largest among over 150 other events across the country.

Event co-organizer (and regular SFist commenter!) Patrick Connors had this to tell Uptown Almanac about the significance of tonight:

I'm being a bit sarcastic, but this could very well be the LAST time any organizing has to be done against Prop 8. This is the last chapter (knock on wood) and considering that DOMA is also on the chopping block, there is history--maybe even life changing history--about to be made.

So I'm encouraging EVERYONE who wants to make news to appear one last time for the photo op of all photo ops that will hopefully show the media/country/assholes of the world that many many many people are paying attention and eager to end this bullshit.

So, if you like humans and enjoy the concepts of love and equality, go ahead and make some signs, grab your friends, and be on the corner of Market and Castro at 6:30pm tonight.

[Uptown Almanac]

On Saturday, the country's foremost group on anti-government paranoia will descend upon Justin Herman Plaza on to protest the national debt. (Pst, it's tax day on Sunday Tuesday, April 17.) Are we talking Occupy? Nope. We are talking tea. Tea party, that is. Angry people of a certain age will travel to San Francisco to spread their arguably anti-American cheer. Join them, won't you?

"Unlike Occupy, the tea party has a permit to occupy the park. Organizers paid The City’s Recreation and Park Department $186 for the gathering, which includes 10 tea party groups from around the Bay Area," reports SF Examiner. "The events will feature speeches, singing and dancing from groups with names such as America’s Budget DefiCettes, a Rockettes-style dance line displaying the number of zeros in the national debt."

The group will throw down a "good old-fashioned finger-wagging" with commemorative "NObama 2012" foam fingers, explained TP organizer Sally Zelikovsky. It's also pretty cool that they're protesting in what many assume to be ground zero for socialism. So, you know, kudos to you, tea bags. Seriously. (Aside: Shouldn't Occupy and Tea Party come together for this day? Since both parties are concerned about the debt and stuff like that? It can be like some sort of bougie Crips-Bloods truce.)

Saturday's rally once again demonstrates that, unlike many small-minded crap cities littering this great country of ours, Baghdad by the Bay is open to allowing all types of minds speak freely without fear of harm or a bullet to the noggin. God bless San Francisco.

The cranky yet spirited folks at OccupySF, an Occupy Wall Street splinter group showing west coast solidarity, will hold a march up Market Street today. The group will meet at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank at 101 Market just above Embarcadero BART station. They also need stuff. Lots of stuff. What kind of stuff? Well, among an extensive list of items they'd like to have, they're asking for: dishes, silverware, BART/Clipper cards, canopies, porta-a-potties, solar panels, photovoltaic generators, natural herbs, "fluoride free" toothpaste, natural honey, good knives, ink for a HP series 1200 printer, good selection of spices, seeds, and kitty [sic] pools.

We have a half-used tube of Crest that's up for grabs, but, you know, it's laced with cavity creep-fighting fluoride.

For more information, please visit OccupySF.

On Saturday, August 6, San Francisco hosted its first Slut Walk. Scores of people showed up at Dolores Park to talk about their own personal experiences with rape. As SF Weekly's Ginger Murray reports, Jessica "Jane Doe" Gonzales told her story about being a victim of gang rape: "She was assaulted by her high school football team while unconscious. At the trial the clothing she wore, the fact that she was intoxicated, and her social network photos were all used against her. The perpetrators were not convicted."

Murry goes on to point out, "There were almost as many men marching as women, and and many different communities were in evidence."

Sparked earlier this year, the Slut Walk movement came about after a police officer in Toronto told audience members at York University that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." In addition to shedding light on rape and victim-blaming, Slut Walk co-founders Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis "decided to use the word slut in their response. They observe that historically, 'slut' has had negative connotations, and that their goal is to redeem the term."

Here are a few images from Saturday's Slut Walk.

Zombie has more images. Mission Local also has a recorded interview with one of the Slut Walk founders who want people to "keep talking about rape."