Coach Gina Castañeda stands in a player box at the edge of the indoor soccer arena, yelling above the cheers of the crowd to the teenage boys in purple jerseys darting across the playing field. A player in mis-matched soccer cleats makes a swift pass to a team mate, who shoots the ball past the goalkeeper and into the net. Castañeda claps wildly, shouting “Good job you guys! ¡Sí se puede!”
Writer, performing artist and human rights activist Brooke Axtel stands on a stage constructed on the 50-yard line of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, speaking to 1,500 rapt audience members—some whose eyes tear up as she recounts her experience as a survivor of sex trafficking at age 7.
As the volunteer director for the Bay Area Youth Dance Team, Vanessa Scott was shocked when one of her 15-year-old students became ensnared in the web of human trafficking and was forced into prostitution. Like many Bay Area residents, Scott was unaware that the San Francisco area ranks as one of the nation’s main hubs for human trafficking, a crime that includes sex trafficking, child labor, forced labor and domestic servitude.
Garen Wintemute has dedicated his career to preventing firearm deaths—a problem that has held steady at epidemic proportions in the United States for more than a decade and accounts for an average of 30,000 deaths each year.
Doctors told Stockton mom Meghan Brenner that the benefits of vaccination far outweighed the risks of side effects. Still, she couldn’t shake the nagging fear that her child, now 2, could be sickened by the shots. The former teacher, now a stay-at-home mom, knew a study linking vaccines with autism had been debunked. And, in theory, she liked the idea of herd immunity and the protection it confers on everyone.
Before health reform, Los Angeles County clinics served people who had no other options—sick patients with no health insurance. But as 2014 approached, county officials realized that many of their clients would become insured and choose other health care. If they opted out, the entire system –with 19,000 employees and a $4 billion budget would face near collapse.
The Affordable Care Act, with its promise of health care for most Americans, represents a welcome step forward for physicians who have cared for the uninsured.
More than a year after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, nearly three million Californians are newly insured by Medi-Cal, California’s health insurance program for the very poor, but many of them are still struggling to get the care they need.
LaVerne Vaughn made a decision after she served prison time in her late 30s: She’d live the rest of her life a free woman. Vaughn, now in her early 40s, with a platinum pixie cut and a steady, empathetic gaze, kept her promise to herself. Several years after her release, she started working in violence prevention and helping ex-cons in Richmond, Calif., find their footing after prison.
Dwayne Taylor went to a party at the Ida B. Wells housing project one mid-May night as the Chicago weather was warming to the promise of spring. Once there, according to court documents, Taylor met up with three friends and made a disastrous decision: to rob someone. They left the party and drove around until they found a victim, 21-year-old Tedrin West. Taylor carjacked, abducted and robbed West before shooting him in the back of the head. As her son lay dead in a parking lot, West’s mother called his stolen phone. A man answered.