Nationally, the foster care system is a long-term home to more children of color than White children. The disparities in California are particularly alarming, with more than half of African American foster children in care for more than two years. Forty-five percent of Native American foster children have also been in the system, which was built to be a short-term solution, for more than two years.
Domestic violence service providers in rural areas, already hard-pressed for resources, are reeling from federal budget cuts that took effect earlier this year and the ongoing shutdown of much of the federal government.
Ask most domestic violence service providers about whether they have sufficient resources and you’ll probably get the same answer: it’s never enough. There’s always a gap in what services are needed and what services are available.
Tiffany Kettermann didn’t realize that her husband was violent until they were already married. Within a year she would be 2,000 miles from home and trapped in a relationship with an emotionally volatile and abusive person.
When the signature reforms of the Affordable Care Act go into effect on January 1st, millions of California will be eligible for government subsidized health-care benefits. Counties, some of which saw their jail populations and health care costs swell since prison reforms took effect in 2011, want inmates to be among the newly insured.
California’s sweeping criminal justice reform plan, in place since October 2011, was meant to sharply reduce the state’s prison population. But the changes may have also had the unintended consequence of passing along the biggest problem associated with overcrowding – poor health care – to county jails.
Getting services to homeless youth is essential to preventing chronic homelessness, advocates say.
Everybody carries the potential for diseases in their genes, but that potential doesn’t always result in illnesses. What flips the genetic switch to create disease in some people and not in others? And even more critically, why is it that those who have ongoing exposure to stress—living in a violent neighborhood or below the poverty level, for example—are more prone to such diseases? Answers may be found in dark matter.
Multiple animal and human studies suggest that many flame retardant chemicals used to treat furniture are either toxic or have not yet been proven safe for long-term use. Now, new research suggests that these chemicals are more even more widespread than experts originally thought.
Over the past year, a $25 million program launched in Hayward to turn around a troubled neighborhood.
A heated debate continues in Richmond over a controversial soda tax that voters will decide on in the November election. The measure has drawn national attention and the American Beverage Association has spent millions of dollars to defeat the measure.