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SANTA CLARA (CBS/AP) — Authorities in Santa Clara County have identified a third suspect accused of beating a Morgan Hill repairman who was allegedly forced to repair a dishwasher and other appliances at risk to his life.

Sheriff's Sgt. Jose Cardoza said Wednesday that 49-year-old Richard Rodriguez Jr. is wanted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment for beating the 50-year-old handyman, holding him hostage and forcing him to make various household repairs a home in Morgan Hill on Dec. 3.

Jason DeJesus, 36, and Chanelle Troedson, 33, are accused of holding a handyman hostage in their Morgan Hill home on Dec. 3, 2012. (Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office)

The repairman escaped and notified police after being driven to a supermarket in San Jose.

Police later arrested 36-year-old Jason DeJesus and 33-year-old Chanelle Troedson, both of Morgan Hill, on similar criminal charges as well as kidnapping.

“The victim was pretty scared. He was pretty shaken up and scared by the whole incident,” Cardoza said after the incident. “What he told investigators is that he was just trying to do what he was told, which was to wait for the opportunity to escape.”

The attack followed a months-long dispute between the handyman and a relative of DeJesus over payment for previous work.

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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GRANTS PASS, Oregon — A pickleball game in this leafy Oregon community was suddenly interrupted one rainy weekend morning by the arrival of an ambulance. Paramedics rushed through the park toward a tent, one of dozens illegally erected by the town’s hundreds of homeless people, then play resumed as though nothing had happened.

Myles Baida plays pickleball as emergency responders put a homeless person in an ambulance March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. Relatives had called police and requested a welfare check. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

Mere feet away, volunteers helped dismantle tents to move an 80-year-old man and a woman blind in one eye, who risked being fined for staying too long. In the distance, a group of boys climbed on a jungle gym.

The scenes were emblematic of the crisis gripping the small, Oregon mountain town of Grants Pass, where a fierce fight over park space has become a battleground for a much larger, national debate on homelessness that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

A volunteer holds on to a wheelchair as Max Hartfelt is helped into his tent after being relocated from one park to another March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. The rural community has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

The town’s case, set to be heard April 22, has broad implications for how not only Grants Pass, but communities nationwide address homelessness, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. It has made the town of 40,000 the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis, and further fueled the debate over how to deal with it.

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Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol visits Tussing Park on March 22 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

“I certainly wish this wasn’t what my town was known for,” Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press last month. “It’s not the reason why I became mayor. And yet it has dominated every single thing that I’ve done for the last 3 ½ years.”

Officials across the political spectrum — from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, which has nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population, to a group of 22 conservative-led states — have filed briefs in the case, saying lower court rulings have hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments.

Like many Western communities, Grants Pass has struggled for years with a burgeoning homeless population. A decade ago, City Council members discussed how to make it “uncomfortable enough … in our city so they will want to move on down the road.” From 2013 to 2018, the city said it issued 500 citations for camping or sleeping in public, including in vehicles, with fines that could reach hundreds of dollars.

A vehicle at left drives down Rogue River Highway as light shines on the area  March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

But a 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals changed the calculus. The court, whose jurisdiction includes nine Western states, held that while communities are allowed to prohibit tents in public spaces, it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to give people criminal citations for sleeping outside when they had no place else to go.

Four years later, in a case challenging restrictions in Grants Pass, the court expanded that ruling, holding that civil citations also can be unconstitutional.

Civil rights groups and attorneys for the homeless residents who challenged the restrictions in 2018 insist people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing. Officials throughout the West have overstated the impact of the court decisions to distract from their own failings, they argued.

“For years, political leaders have chosen to tolerate encampments as an alternative to meaningfully addressing the western region’s severe housing shortage,” the attorneys wrote. “It is easier to blame the courts than to take responsibility for finding a solution.”

In Grants Pass, the town’s parks, many lining the picturesque Rogue River, are at the heart of the debate. Cherished for their open spaces, picnic tables, playgrounds and sports fields, they host everything from annual boat-racing festivals and vintage car shows to Easter egg hunts and summer concerts.

Brian Wright, center, prays during bible study at Gospel Rescue Mission on March 21 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

They’re also the sites of encampments blighted by illegal drug use and crime, including a shooting at a park last year that left one person dead. Tents cluster along riverbanks, next to tennis courts and jungle gyms, with tarps shielding belongings from the rain. When the sun comes out, clothes and blankets are strung across tree branches to dry. Used needles litter the ground.

Grants Pass has one overnight shelter for adults, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but rules including attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking and no pets mean many won’t stay there.

Cassy Leach, a nurse, leads a volunteer group providing food, medical care and other basic goods to the town’s hundreds of homeless people. They help relocate their tents to comply with city rules.

Cassy Leach, a nurse who leads a group of volunteers who provide food, medical care and other basic goods to the hundreds of homeless people living in the parks, talks to Kimberly Marie, who is homeless and camping in Fruitdale Park on March 21 in Grants Pass, Ore. 

Jenny Kane, Associated Press

At one park last month, she checked on a man who burned his leg after falling on a torch lighter during a fentanyl overdose and brought him naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal medication. In another, she distributed cans of beans, peas and Chef Boyardee mini ravioli from a pickup truck.

“Love, hope, community and a safety net is really as important as a shower and water,” Leach said.

Dre Buetow, 48, from northern California, has been living in his car for three years after a bone cancer diagnosis and $450,000 in medical bills. The illness and treatment kept him from returning to his old tree-trimming job, he said.

Laura Gutowski’s husband died from a pulmonary embolism and she suddenly found herself, in her 50s, with no income. They didn’t have life insurance or savings and, within a month, she was sleeping outside.

“I used to love camping,” she said through tears. “And now I can’t stand it anymore.”

But some residents want to limit aid because of the trash left behind after encampment moves or food handouts. The City Council proposed requiring outreach groups to register with the city. The mayor vetoed it, laying bare the discord gripping Grants Pass.

Before the council attempted, unsuccessfully, to override the veto last month, a self-proclaimed “park watch” group rallied outside City Hall with signs reading, “Parks are for kids.” 

The group regularly posts images of trash, tents and homeless people on social media. On Sundays, they set up camp chairs in what they say is a bid to reclaim park space.

Brock Spurgeon says he used to take his grandkids to parks that were so full it was hard to find an available picnic table. Now, open drug use and discarded needles have scared families away, he said.

“That was taken away from us when the campers started using the parks,” he said.

Homeless encampment sweeps spike in cities across US as housing crisis grows

Michael Johnson gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.  

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

Roxanne Simonson, 60, removes her long-sleeve shirt  July 27 after being told by Rapid Response Bio Clean that she has 72 hours to vacant her illegal campsite in Portland, Ore. Simonson has been homeless for two years. 

Craig Mitchelldyer

Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend July 27 before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore. Taylor says that he has had to move three times since becoming homeless. Tent encampments have long been a fixture of West Coast cities, but are now spreading visibly across the U.S. The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, driven by lack of affordable housing and a pandemic that economically wrecked households. 

Craig Mitchelldyer, Associated Press

Prohibited items that have been collected by Rapid Response Bio Clean while cleaning homeless camps sit on a table in the company warehouse in Portland, Ore., on July 27, 2023. Weapons, car parts and drug paraphernalia are not allowed to be returned to people whose items have been confiscated during a sweep.  

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

A San Francisco Police Department vehicle drives through a homeless encampment being cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Records obtained by The Associated Press show attempts to clear encampments increased in cities from Los Angeles to New York as public pressure grew to address what are dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But despite tens of millions of dollars spent in recent years, there appears to be little reduction in the number of tents propped up on sidewalks, in parks and by freeway off-ramps.

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Members of the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team’s Encampment Resolution Team walk toward an encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023. 

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

Two small stones that say “hope” and “peace” respectively and two flowers lay inside a circle of rocks on the ground in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The rock circle is next to the site of a former homeless encampment that was cleared several times over the course of the year. With homelessness on the rise in the U.S. and a lack of affordable housing, cities and states are cracking down on mushrooming tent encampments.  

Claire Rushr, Associated Press

Roughly 30 large boulders occupy the narrow strip of land between a sidewalk and a parking lot wall in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The boulders were installed sometime after late July at the site of a former homeless encampment to prevent tents from being set back up. The encampment was cleared several times over the course of the year.  

Claire Rushr, Associated Press

San Francisco Public Works crew load a truck while cleaning items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.  

Jeff Chiu, Associated Press

A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Members of the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team’s Encampment Resolution Team speak with people at an encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

A San Francisco Public Works crew cleans items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023. 

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Maurice Palmer waits with his possessions as a homeless encampment is cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Francis Zamora, of Department of Emergency Management, walks past a puddle near a homeless encampment being cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

A man pushes items while a homeless encampment is being cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.  

Jeff Chiur, Associated Press

Roughly 30 large boulders occupy the narrow strip of land between a sidewalk and a parking lot wall in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The boulders were installed sometime after late July at the site of a former homeless encampment to prevent tents from being set back up. The encampment was cleared several times over the course of the year. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.  

Claire Rushr, Associated Press

Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Clean cleans a homeless camp July 27 in Portland, Ore. 

Craig Mitchelldyer, Associated Press

Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend July 27 before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore.

Craig Mitchelldyer, Associated Press

Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore., July 27, 2023. T 

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Clean cleans a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., on July 27, 2023.  

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

Amber Nastasia, left, and Jacob Miller from Rapid Response Bio Clean clean a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023.  

Craig Mitchelldyerr, Associated Press

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MORGAN HILL (CBS SF) — A man was arrested Wednesday evening in connection with the kidnapping and assault of a handyman in unincorporated Santa Clara County more than two weeks ago, a Santa Clara County sheriff's sergeant said.

Richard Rodriguez Jr., 49, whose last known address was in Alameda, turned himself in to Alameda police on Wednesday around 5 p.m., Sgt. Jose Cardoza said.

Alameda police will take Rodriguez to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office within the next week, Cardoza said.

Rodriguez had an outstanding arrest warrant on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and a prison sentence for his alleged involvement in a Dec. 3 incident in which a handyman was forced to do home repair work against his will, Cardoza said.

Cardoza said Rodriguez helped two Morgan Hill residents, Jason DeJesus, 36, and Chanelle Troedson, 33, force the 50-year-old handyman to work on the Morgan Hill suspect's home in the 200 block of Caldwell Way.

On December 3, around 7 p.m., San Jose police received a report of a kidnapping and assault by the victim, who had managed to escape his captors at a San Jose gas station.

Police turned the investigation over to the sheriff's office because the kidnapping occurred outside police jurisdiction, Cardoza said.

The victim told officers that he initially performed handyman services for a relative of one of the suspects about two months ago, but was not paid in full for his work, which led to a dispute over the services provided, Cardoza said.

The victim said the suspects lured him to their apartment just before 11 a.m. to do repair work, the sergeant said.

Upon arriving at the residence, the victim was attacked, held against his will and threatened with his life for several hours, Cardoza said.

The victim was still inside the Caldwell Way apartment at 5:30 p.m. when the suspects forced him into a truck.

The victim was told he needed to complete repair work he began two months ago on the suspect's relative's home in Santa Clara.

On the way to the house, the suspects stopped at the Chevron gas station at the intersection of Santa Teresa Boulevard and Cottle Road in San Jose to purchase gas.

As the suspects exited the vehicle to purchase gas and groceries, the victim fled on foot, ignoring a warning from the suspects to stay put, Cardoza said.

The victim ran to a nearby residence to report the incident, he said.

San Jose police responded to the scene, located DeJesus and Troedson near the gas station and arrested them on suspicion of false imprisonment, kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, criminal threats and conspiracy.

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco and Bay City News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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Ex-San Francisco DPW Director Sentenced to Seven Years in Corruption Case | Engineering News Record

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Photographer: Jeff Chiu/AP

By David M Greenwald
executive editor

Los Angeles, CA – There were a lot of bad media takes coming out of the primary election two weeks ago—and a lot of them were due to a rush to judgment because the media failed to understand that the old rules largely do not apply anymore as to how ballots come in and get counted. That led to premature calls.

It still looks like Chesa Boudin will get recalled, but by a 10-rather than a 20-point margin. One of the bad takes has been the use of San Francisco as evidence for the limits of progressivism and even a warning to Democrats for the fall, and perhaps even deeper.

Gil Duran’s otherwise good piece warned, “The primary election in California last week conveyed a warning to Democrats about the political threat posed by rising public anger toward the increasingly visible poverty and disorder on city streets — in this case, San Francisco’s.”

It makes sense on one level—San Francisco has been consistently one of the nation’s most progressive and reliably blue cities in the country, and, as Duran put it, while Chesa Boudin became a scapegoat for the problems in the community, “[h]is loss in a recall attempt had much to do with California’s chronic failure to deal with homelessness, mental illness and poverty. These issues will persist without him.”

But what if San Francisco is not really the best test case for such issues?

San Francisco, after all, is hardly the first city to see a backlash against a progressive prosecutor. We saw heavy money thrown into DA’s races last year in Philadelphia and St. Louis, to name two. However, in each of those, the incumbent DA was (a) running against a named opponent with a record and agenda they could push back on, and (b) was able to prevail—overwhelmingly.

Boudin did not get a tangible opponent, but the big difference might be the demographics in San Francisco.

This is a point made by Erika Smith, an LA Times columnist, who argued yesterday that Los Angeles rather than San Francisco could become the most progressive city in California (and by virtue of that, the nation).

(One thing to bear in mind is that George Gascón faces a recall in Los Angeles, but, unlike San Francisco where the county is limited to the city of San Francisco, Los Angeles County encompasses a number of much more conservative areas, which could make it more dicey for Gascon).

But Smith points to things like the apparent victory of abolitionist City Council member Eunisses Hernandez over formidable establishment Democrat Gil Cedillo for City Council.

Moreover, there is also Hugo Soto-Martinez, “who campaigned on having fewer cops and repeating the law that allows the city to remove homeless encampments, has pulled ahead of incumbent City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell in District 13.”

Moreover, “In citywide races, it’s much the same thing. For controller, progressive activist Kenneth Mejia was the top vote-getter and faces City Councilman Paul Koretz in a runoff in November. For city attorney, civil rights lawyer Faisal Gill is in the lead after vowing to repeal the city’s anti-camping law and enact a pause on prosecutions to evaluate the “unacceptably broad” charging of misdemeanors.”

She also notes “in the mayoral race, Rep. Karen Bass has pulled ahead of billionaire developer Rick Caruso, with those who voted by mail overwhelmingly choosing her more liberal approach to addressing crime, policing and homelessness.”

That was one of the bad media calls that proclaimed him a winner before the votes were all counted. Suddenly that race looks very different.

“This progressive surge has made itself competitive,” said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of Cal State LA’s Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs as quoted in her column. “And that’s a big deal.”

Smith notes, “Los Angeles is one of the most progressive cities in the country, but it’s rarely thought of as the most liberal city in the state. That title usually goes to San Francisco.”

“There is a perception of San Francisco as more liberal than LA,” Sonenshein said, “back to the days when LA was more conservative than it is today. I’m talking 30, 40, 50 years ago.”

Here I think is probably the most important point, she writes: “Nevertheless, given Boudin’s national profile, it was that vote that launched a thousand ill-thought-out think pieces and several more thousand speculative tweets.”

Los Angeles has probably become more progressive, certainly since the 1980s, but a big factor that many have failed to recognize—San Francisco has become much more affluent, in part due to the housing affordability crisis, and, as such, much less diverse and more white.

Whereas Kim Gardner in St. Louis and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia could tap into huge bases of black voters when the going got tough, Chesa Boudin was hung out to dry when normally progressive upper middle class white voters panicked at perceptions of rising crime rates.

Writes Smith, “Contributing to this has been the influx of tech wealth, followed by the housing affordability crisis. San Francisco has become a far more affluent city than it once was and far less of a working-class one, with even teachers forced to become super commuters. And this has had an impact on diversity.”

“Everybody’s seen ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco,’” Melina Abdullah, a professor of pan-African studies at Cal State LA, quipped about the 2019 film, the plot of which is exactly what it sounds like.

“You’re starting to see—I mean, maybe not even starting—what you’re seeing is people who we’d assume would be liberal have their class-based interests and are voting their class, rather than voting along with working- class people of color,” she added.

John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University, noted in a June 5 tweet that San Francisco is only 5 percent Black compared with Philadelphia (44 percent) and St. Louis (46 percent).

He noted before the election that the notion “if liberal SF can’t vote for a progressive, then… who will??” has traction but “gets the racial politics of all this wrong: SF is (progressive), but MUCH whiter than most cities (with progressive) DAs.”

Pfaff believes that support for reform from white progressives is much less reliable than for people of color.

As he told Smith, “Crime is an abstraction for most of them—for most of us… You read about it, you hear about it, but the moment crime is closer to you, it’s kind of shocking and appalling. But the Black community, they not only experience the violence, they experience the policing. It’s not abstract for them. The fundamental humanization of it explains why there’s more support for reform.”

Put another way, for many white upper middle-class voters—even those who are progressive—they favor reform over there, when the threat is away from them and they are safe and secure in their homes of privilege.

What we learned is that white upper middle-class voters run from reform when they perceive it as a threat to their affluence and comfort, and that’s why reform has succeeded in places like Philadelphia and the like but not San Francisco.

Smith makes one other point that is important, “That’s one more thing going for progressive politics in Los Angeles, which could make getting rid of Gascón harder than getting rid of Boudin in San Francisco.

“While working-class people of color continue to be displaced from the city of LA, many remain in the county, relocating to Palmdale and other, cheaper high desert locales. Those priced out of San Francisco generally have no choice but to leave the city and the county, as the boundaries are basically the same.”

Even though housing costs are rising in Los Angeles, outstripping wages, it may not have the same impact as it did in San Francisco.

“There is time for those who want a progressive agenda to make sure that we don’t go the way of San Francisco,” Melina Abdullah said.

But again, there is a flip side to that—there are a lot of more conservative areas in Los Angeles than there are in San Francisco. So we’ll see how this plays out.

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A 36-year-old man who attempted to flee to Amsterdam from San Francisco International Airport with a 16-year-old Redwood City girl he planned to marry has been sentenced to four years in prison, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office .

In June, Dylan Raymos, a San Francisco resident, was arrested in Redwood City for allegedly having unlawful sex with the girl and was ordered not to have contact with her, prosecutors said.

However, he disobeyed the order, picked up the girl at her home on July 7, and went to the airport. Prosecutors said that US Customs and Border Protection approached him on the plane and learned he was violating a court order and fleeing the country. Raymos admitted email contact and said the girl had agreed to travel with him to Portugal through Amsterdam, and he planned to marry her, prosecutors said.

The victim’s family statements gave in court that persuaded the judge to go beyond the two years initially considered and go with four years, prosecutors said. He was also ordered not to contact the victim for 10 years.

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A Colorado man suspected in the 1978 slaying of a 15-year-old girl visiting San Francisco will be arraigned on murder charges Thursday, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said Wednesday.

Mark Stanley Personette, 76, was arrested in December in connection with the sexual assault and killing of 15-year-old Marissa Harvey.

Marissa had traveled from New York to San Francisco to visit her sister in 1978, and went to Golden Gate Park on March 27 with plans for renting a horse but didn’t return, police said.

She was reported missing and her body was found in nearby Sutro Heights Park the next day.

The case went cold for 43 years until last fall, when a DNA hit in a genealogy database linked DNA taken from the crime scene to Personette, authorities said.

Personette was arrested Dec. 16 in Colorado and extradited. He is set to be arranged at 9 am Thursday.

“We are proud of our team and our collaboration with SFPD to solve this crime,” Boudin said. “We will work to ensure that Mr. Personette is held accountable for the brutal and heinous acts that took Marissa’s life and to bring closure to her family, which has never stopped advocating for justice.”

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The San Francisco Chronicle says the city “wants to hold the prescription drug industry responsible” for the opioid crisis, with companies like Walgreens allegedly trivializing the risk of long-term use to customers. Also: the military fuel leak in Hawaii, efforts to block Alabama’s anti-trans law, and more.

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Wants To Hold The Prescription Drug Industry Responsible For The Opioid Crisis. Here Are 3 Ways The Trial Underway Is Unique

With billions of dollars at stake, San Francisco opened a federal court trial Monday against Walgreens pharmacy and three companies that manufacture or distribute opioids. The companies regularly “overstated the benefits and trivialized the risks of the long-term use of opioids” to their customers, City Attorney David Chiu’s office said in a filing with US District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco, who is presiding over the non- jury trial. (Egelko, 4/25)

In other health news from across the US —

AP: US Military Drops Appeal Of Hawaii Order To Drain Fuel Tanks

The US government on Friday dropped its appeals of a Hawaii order requiring it to remove fuel from a massive military fuel storage facility that leaked petroleum into the Navy’s water system at Pearl Harbor last year. Attorneys for the US Department of Defense notified the state and federal courts of its decision. The move comes more than a month after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the military would permanently shut down the tanks and drain all of their fuel. (McAvoy, 4/24)

AP: Hearing Set In Effort To Block Alabama Transgender Law

A federal judge will hear arguments next month on whether to block enforcement of an Alabama law outlawing the use of gender-affirming medications to treat transgender people under age 19. The May 5 hearing is scheduled just days before the law is set to take effect on May 8. US District Judge Liles Burke set the evidentiary hearing, scheduled to last up to two days, on a request for a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to stop Alabama officials from enforcing the law while a court challenge goes forward. (4/25)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Advocates For The Elderly Want State Regulators To Take A Harder Look At Nursing Home Sales

In the most complete revision of its nursing home rules in at least 25 years, the Pennsylvania Department of Health last month proposed new regulations that would require more scrutiny of homes’ prospective owners. For the first time, regulators would analyze the financial strength and past performance of owners — including individuals, not just legal entities — and related companies that seek to take over nursing homes in the state. Historically, officials have effectively rubber-stamped license applications, critics said. (Brubaker, 4/26)

Detroit Free Press: Michigan Schools Missing Students’ Signs Of Dyslexia

In the first grade, Lynn Gaskell’s daughter was behind in reading. When Rileigh, now 13, tried to read aloud, she added extra syllables to words and stumbled through pages. Rileigh’s school evaluated her and came back to her parents with a recommendation: Evaluate Rileigh for ADHD, which Rileigh did have. Her reading problems persisted all through elementary school, landing her extra time with reading teachers with little progress. Gaskell brought up dyslexia, but she said school officials brushed her off. “Not one single person approached me about dyslexia, not one time,” Gaskell said. (Altavena, 4/25)

Anchorage Daily News: Private Donors Put $7M Toward Anchorage’s Homelessness Plan

A group of private organizations is donating $7 million toward Anchorage’s plan to fast-track several homelessness services projects as part of an effort to close the city’s pandemic-era emergency mass care operations by June 30. The Anchorage Assembly has already allocated $6 million toward the projects, bringing the total so far to $13 million. Private donors include the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, Calista Corp., Chugach Alaska Corp., Doyon Ltd., Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, Providence Alaska, the Rasmuson Foundation and Weidner Apartment Homes. (Goodykoontz, 4/25)

AP: Indiana Town South By Government, Didn’t Hire Man With HIV

The federal government is accusing a southern Indiana town of discriminating against a man with HIV who applied to become a police officer. The Justice Department said it filed a lawsuit Monday against Clarksville, Indiana. Clarksville police had offered a job to a man who was already working as a volunteer reserve officer but then dropped the offer in 2015 based on his HIV status, the Justice Department said. (4/26)

KHN: Shopping For Space, Health Systems Make Over Malls

The hulking Hickory Hollow Mall — a full 1.1 million square feet of retail space in southeastern Nashville — was once the largest shopping center in Tennessee. But like many malls, it’s been in a downward death spiral for more than a decade. Now the mammoth complex surrounded by acres of parking is on track to join the ranks of malls making a transition into a booming economic sector: medicine. Vanderbilt University Medical Center has had such success reviving a different mall that its health system, Vanderbilt Health, plans to add medical clinics at the former Hickory Hollow Mall, rebranded a decade ago as the Global Mall at the Crossings. (Farmers, 4/26)

KHN: Tech Titans Want The Richest Californians To Pay For Pandemic Preparedness

Gabe Bankman-Fried, a former Wall Street trader, has raised $12 million from a cryptocurrency trading firm founded by his brother, Sam Bankman-Fried. Dustin Moskovitz, a billionaire who roomed with Mark Zuckerberg in college and helped found Facebook in 2004, funds a nonprofit with his wife that has ponied up $6.5 million. And Max Henderson, a startup investor and former Google executive, is using that money to spearhead, a campaign for a statewide ballot initiative that would tax California’s wealthiest residents and fund public health initiatives, with the ambitious goal of preventing another pandemic from ripping across the country . (Hard, 4/26)

This is part of the KHN Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.

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Feb 15, 4:15 pm: San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin dropped felony property charges filed against a woman Tuesday after decrying San Francisco police’s alleged practice of using DNA from rape victims during searches for criminal suspects.

“It is my commitment going forward to never use DNA obtained in this unlawful way,” Boudin said during a briefing. “Our conversations with the leadership at SFPD Crime Lab suggest that this is a routine practice not only in San Francisco but at other crime labs across the state.”

A spokesperson for Boudin’s office declined to comment further on the particulars of the case to SFGATE in an effort to protect the woman’s privacy.

But as the revelation continues to make national headlines, San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen and California state Sen. Scott Wiener are calling for state and city bans on the practice.

Feb 14, 4:45 pm: The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office has come forward with allegations that the San Francisco Police Department used a woman’s DNA previously obtained from a rape kit to arrest her for a property crime.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced the bombshell during a Monday press conference, as first reported by The San Francisco Chronicle. (SFGATE and The Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently of each other.)

Boudin alleges that he was informed of this police practice last week, The Chronicle reports.

If true, Boudin said, the revelation would further discourage survivors of rape and sexual assault in San Francisco from coming forward. SFPD has faced scrutiny in the past related to its mishandling of sexual assault cases. A 2014 KGO investigation found hundreds of untested rape kits spanning nearly a decade, and in 2019, a woman petitioned the US Supreme Court to take up a case against the Police Department for its mishandling of her rape.

“I am disturbed that victims who have the courage to undergo an invasive examination to help identify their perpetrators are being treated like criminals rather than supported as crime victims,” ​​Boudin said in a statement to SFGATE. “We should encourage survivors to come forward — not collect evidence to use against them in the future. This practice treats victims like evidence, not human beings. This is legally and ethically wrong. My office is demanding that this practice end immediately, and is Encourage local and state legislators to introduce legislation to end this practice in California. We remain committed to doing everything in our power to support survivors of sexual violence.”

San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott declined to confirm the allegations in a statement, saying that “our existing DNA collection policies have been legally vetted and conform with state and national forensic standards.”

“We must never create disincentives for crime victims to cooperate with police, and if it’s true that DNA collected from a rape or sexual assault victim has been used by SFPD to identify and apprehend that person as a suspect in another crime, I’m committed to ending the practice,” he said in a statement.

The allegation is likely to intensify ongoing tensions between San Francisco police and the DA’s Office. Earlier this month, Scott announced that the Police Department would no longer cooperate with Boudin’s office to independently investigate police misconduct after alleging that the office violated the memorandum by withholding information. A DA’s Office spokesperson denied the claims.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced earlier Monday that they would intervene to ensure an agreement between the two offices.

Bay City News Service contributed to this report.

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