The Kent herbalist is pictured selling herbs on the Greenwich High Road in south-east London in the 1880s. This is one of many remarkable photographs from the Victorian era that show the daily lives of adult and child street vendors.

Old Clo' Man, in Greenwich, London, 1880s. During the smallpox epidemics of the 1880s, it was a crime to throw away infected clothing, and the Old Clo' Man was in a risky business.

A chair repairman on the corner of Prince Orange Lane, Greenwich, London

A toy seller in King William Street outside the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, in one of many fascinating photographs commissioned by a priest who wanted to take slides of workmen to use in his sermons.

A level crossing sweeper in Clarence Street, Greenwich

A chimney sweep, Greenwich

Prawn sellers outside Greenwich Park in south-east London in the 1880s, in one of the stunning images showing the daily life of the street vendors (adult and children). On the left is a boy staring into the camera as the picture is taken.

W. Thompson, cake baker, in front of his shop in the alley behind Greenwich Church

Newspaper boy and street sweeper deliver the newspaper “The Daily News” near Greenwich Pier at 7:30 a.m.

A sherbet seller is photographed while a boy drinks from a cup in Greenwich Park. This is one of many photographs commissioned by Charles Spurgeon the Younger, a priest at South St Baptist Chapel, who wanted to use them in his sermons.

A man sells gingerbread in King Street, near Greenwich Park, south-east London. By the end of the 19th century, there were an estimated 30,000 street vendors throughout London, each usually selling their wares from a cart or donkey cart.

A knife grinder poses while cutting a boiler bottom from a sheet of metal, Greenwich

A hokey-pokey boy sells ice cream on Stockwell Street in Greenwich. Various tourism posters can be seen behind the stall. Middle and working class households relied on street vendors who sold their goods at the most competitive prices.

A milk master in his uniform outside the Royal Naval College. Street vendors competed intensely for customers and were not always honest with consumers. One vendor admitted that he boiled oranges to make them swell and look bigger

Young boys watch a blind violinist play outside Crowders' Music Hall – now the Greenwich Theatre. Owned by Charles Crowder, the venue offered Victorian audiences a mix of burlesque, concert and ballet performances each night.

A third-class milkman carrying four-gallon cans on a yoke, Greenwich

A boy stands next to a rabbit seller in Greenwich. The thousands of street vendors were known as “costermongers” or “costers.” Some street vendors shifted their wares from a cart or donkey cart, while others sold their products from stationary stalls.

Fishmonger in Greenwich. The most profitable times for a fishmonger were Saturday and Sunday mornings as recently paid customers wanted to buy their Sunday dinner. The busiest days were Wednesday and Friday as fresh fish was available then.

A child measures his weight on a giant scale that was installed in the 1880s outside Greenwich Park in south-east London. The park itself is a 17th-century landscape with a history dating back to Roman times and covers 183 hectares

A second-class milkman with a handcart and a 17-gallon can in one of many photographs from the 1880s. A journalist from that era documented vendors hawking products such as sheep's feet, baked potatoes, cough drops and even birds' nests.

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A San Francisco woman has spent more than a quarter century helping older adults and people with disabilities stay safely in their homes.

Daisy McArthur lives a life of service because she loves people.

“I say, 'Whatever you do, be patient, be kind and listen to them,'” she said.

At age 76, McArthur has worked for the city's Department of Home Support Services for more than 25 years. It helps low-income seniors and people with disabilities so they can stay in their own homes instead of moving into a facility.

She also serves as secretary to the board of directors. Her service is rooted in her Southern upbringing. As a child, she accompanied her mother and her neighbors during emergencies.

“We watched them take care of the elderly. People who got sick or were bitten by snakes broke a leg or an arm,” she described.

McArthur helps her clients with daily tasks such as bathing, dressing, cooking and laundry. She cared for a client for more than 30 years until he recently passed away at the age of 101. Before that, she looked after his 102-year-old mother.

The job isn't easy and can be lonely, but McArthur knows she's making a difference.

“I want to treat myself the way I would treat you, and that is kindness. The golden rule,” McArthur said.

Executive Director Eileen Norman says McArthur is the perfect role model, mentor and trainer for 22,000 home support service providers in San Francisco.

“Ms. Daisy is warm, loving, sensitive and matter-of-fact,” Norman said. “Above all, Ms. Daisy fights for what she believes in.”

When a fire destroyed her Bush Street apartment building 25 years ago, she fought for emergency relief and housing for three dozen other homeless tenants, earning her the nickname “Mayor of Bush Street.”

At the start of the COVID pandemic, McArthur and one of her clients became advocates for vaccinating older adults when many were skeptical of the vaccine.

She also organized memorial services and funerals for several homeless people she met.

Ultimately, McArthur just wants to help people succeed.

“I hope they remember the kindness, the goodness and the work I did,” she said. “There’s an old song: ‘May the work I do speak for me.”

This week's Bay Area Jefferson Award goes to Daisy McArthur for going above and beyond in providing home care and training.

More from CBS News

Sharon Chin

Sharon Chin is a general assignment reporter who also profiles Jefferson Award winners for KPIX 5 Eyewitness News. Since joining KPIX 5 in 1997, Chin has covered everything from fires to features, from politics to perspectives, but she is especially proud of bringing viewers the stories of Jefferson Award winners. She feels inspired when she tells the stories of our community's heroes.

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He soon founded a nonprofit social network for entrepreneurs called Mesto — the Russian word for place — hoping to boost the start-up market in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. As he launched a new start-up of his own, Duplicat, which aimed to identify fraud in the market for nonfungible tokens, he contracted with a team of artificial intelligence engineers spread across Russia.

He also invested in several Ukrainian start-ups. One of them was Reface, an AI company recommended by Mr. Podolianko. Last summer, as they met with other companies and colleagues in Kyiv, the two of them attended a boat party whose hosts were a group of Ukrainian technologists and investors. Mr. Podolyanko brought his girlfriend, a Ukrainian financial analyst named Stacy Antipova.

Russia-Ukraine War: Key Developments

Cards 1 of 4

Russia’s punishment of Finland. Russia cut off its natural gas supplies to Finland on May 21, according to Finland’s state energy provider. Russia said that it was suspending the supply because Finland had failed to comply with its demand to make payments in rubles. Finland has also submitted an application to join NATO, approaching Russia.

It was a trip they now look back on with rueful affection. Russia invaded six months later.

After the invasion, Ms. Antipova fled Ukraine and flew to Tijuana, Mexico, where she could cross into the United States as a refugee. She now lives at DobryDom. “When I went down for breakfast the first time,” Mr. Doronichev remembered, “I did not know what to say.”

Sitting in the backyard alongside her new housemates on a recent afternoon, Ms. Antipova was also unsure what to say. “I didn’t plan to move so far away so soon,” she said. “I am just trying to fix my life, to understand what I want to do, because I left the rest of my life behind.”

Across the table, Dasha Kroshkina, another Russian-born entrepreneur, explained that she was working to move employees out of both Russia and Ukraine and scrambling to restart her company’s service, StudyFree, in Africa and India. When the war began, many of its customers — students looking for scholarships and grants at universities abroad — were in Russia.

“We all feel trauma,” said Mikita Mikado, another DobryDom housemate, who immigrated from Belarus. “But the trauma is different for each one of us.”

Mr. Mikado and Mr. Doronichev are now working to move their own employees out of Russia and into European and Asian countries accepting Russian citizens without visas, but not all are willing or able to leave. The two entrepreneurs will cut ties with anyone who stays.

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St. John’s, Newfoundland–(Newsfile Corp. – March 14, 2022) – Environmentally friendly and socially responsible technologies have become important differentiators in business, while adhering to governance norms. Atlantic Standard (HVAC) is a licensed heating and air conditioning company who has taken the initiative of reducing Canada’s carbon footprint through energy-conserving heating and cooling solutions to provide greater impact for Canadian communities for the last two years.

Using a sustainable business model, the company creates, delivers, and captures value for all stakeholders without depleting natural, economic, and social capital. Atlantic Standard has established partnerships with leading energy manufacturers and retailers whose core products focus on environment first compliance. The partnerships include retailers such as LG, paving the newest way to conserve energy with solutions like the LG ThinQ, a heating and cooling solution which is eligible for Canada’s Greener Homes Grant and is also ENERGY STAR® certified integrating AI advanced technology.

The company additionally teamed up with another local green-tech company making big leaps across the globe, Mysa (Smart Thermostats), to offer free smart thermostats to customers who purchase a heat pump through them. This has led to the advent of alternative strategies that have been able to reduce customers’ bills and enable them to have more money while also enabling them to contribute back to energy conservation.

In addition to eco-friendly objectives, greater social impact initiatives have been expanding in tandem. In collaboration with local community programs, the company also offers supporting programs, systems, and opportunities focused on providing individualized support to young people, celebrating their unique characteristics, and ensuring they have the tools they need to succeed in the world. Due to this, they are committed to supporting organizations that help the next generation thrive and help make a real difference in the lives of our most vulnerable adolescents. It has also made successful adaptations to changing environments and management as a source of durability and sustainability.

Story continues

In addition to offering in-house financing for its solutions, Atlantic Standard offers its customers an Air Miles Reward Program, which enables customers to earn and redeem miles for travel and merchandise at local retailers, thereby contributing to green initiatives.

Atlantic Standard HVAC is excited about the future in becoming a global leader in innovation while having a focus on an eco-friendly planet.

For more information please visit company information below:

Website- https://atlanticstandardhvac.com/

Email info@atlanticstandardhvac.ca

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/atlanticstandardhvac/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/AtlanticStandardHVAC

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/116175

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SAN MATEO (KPIX 5) – A transition to zero-emission vehicles nationwide would have a major impact on air quality and the health of residents in the Bay Area and across California, according to the American Lung Association’s “Zeroing in on Healthy Air” report .

The report is based upon the idea that all new passenger vehicles sold by 2035 are zero-emission, and all new trucks and buses sold by 2040 are zero-emission.

READ MORE: Health Experts Say COVID Cases Likely Will Rise When Spring Break Ends

The ALA’s findings reveal California would see $169 billion in public health benefits, and a change would result in up to 15,300 deaths.

“In the San Francisco Bay Area, we see over $40 billion in public health benefits by 2050 through this transition. That comes out to about 3,800 lives saved, over 100,000 asthma attacks avoided, and over 500,000 lost workdays avoided because the air would be cleaner in the Bay Area,” said Will Barrett, the ALA’s National Senior Director for Clean Air Advocacy.

Nationally, the transition would generate more than $1.2 trillion in health benefits and $1.7 trillion in climate benefits by 2050.

Barrett explained the study focused on the public health benefits of getting off of fossil fuels.

“There are thousands and thousands of premature deaths every year in California due to air pollution,” Barrett told KPIX 5. “There’s a wide range of negative health consequences associated with unhealthy air. It’s everything from minor irritation – like coughing and wheezing – to more serious health emergencies, like asthma attacks, heart attacks, and strokes. Breathing in particle pollution can cause lung cancer.”

Amy Primus, who owns an electric vehicle, thinks the American Lung Association’s report is just one more reason to make the switch to electric.

READ MORE: Diners at North Beach Welcome Return of San Francisco Restaurant Week

“We should become electric with all vehicles and trucks because it’ll make a huge difference in air quality, standard of life, and all of that,” she said.

The Zero Emission Transportation Association issued the following statement to KPIX 5 in response to the ALA’s report:

“Fossil fuel-powered transportation is dangerous, causing thousands of illnesses and deaths each year. Luckily, there is a healthier way for us to go about our daily lives. The American Lung Association’s new “Zeroing in on Healthy Air” report proves that point. If we transition to electric vehicles powered by clean electricity, we could save 110,000 lives over the next thirty years. We could also avoid $1.2 trillion in public health costs and more than $1.7 trillion in environmental costs.

Importantly, because we know that the burden of breathing unhealthy air is not shared equally among people, this report also investigated the 100 US counties with the highest percentages of people of color. Despite representing just 3% of US counties, these counties could experience approximately 13% of the benefits of electrification—or $155 billion in avoided health and environmental damages.

The benefits of electrifying the transportation sector are unequivocal and vast. With more than 100,000 lives and trillions of dollars on the line, Congress must act now to pass President Biden’s clean energy agenda. This plan will jumpstart electric vehicle adoption in the US by driving down consumer prices, expanding the EV charging network, and electrifying our high-polluting heavy-duty fleets.”

Barrett said there’s a long way to go over the next few decades, but the process will have a major impact on air quality and public health as it unfolds.

“We know there’s a long way to go, but we also know there’s active policy action right now,” he said.

MORE NEWS: Coastside Volunteers Make, Sell Tamales to Help Ukraine

Under an executive order by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California will halt sales of new gas-powered cars and passenger trucks by 2035.

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The series was given a writers’ room in August 2021 in the hope that anything the writers could come up with could go straight into a series order. That was the case here too, and “The Lives of the Mayfair Witches” received an eight-episode commission for its first season. The series is the second in an expanded Anne Rice universe, as the series “Vampire Chronicles” received the green light in June 2021 and had its protagonist, the vampire Lestat, occupied by August.

The series was written by Esta Spalding and Michelle Ashford, best known for their work on the Showtime drama “Masters of Sex”. Spalding will act as the show runner for the series under her overall contract with AMC Studios.

Spalding and Ashford shared their excitement with Deadline, explaining their solidarity with the franchise:

“The world of witches has fascinated and terrified for centuries, and yet Anne Rice’s particular focus on witches has explored something entirely new – women who are powerful, often brutal, and always determined to undermine our current power structures. We are very excited to be helping our partners AMC and Gran Via Productions to bring this mysterious and provocative world to life. ”

The women in Rice’s world are indeed wild creatures, whether they are witches, vampires, or common people caught up in supernatural nonsense. Hopefully the series will be good enough to be an adaptation of Rice’s seventh “Vampire Chronicles” book, “Merrick,” which follows a forgotten daughter of the Mayfair witches who falls in love with the eternal vampire sad boy Louis de Pointe du Lac. Louis is the narrator of Interview with the Vampire and is played by Brad Pitt in the 1994 film adaptation. Their romance is truly one of star-crossed lovers destined for tragedy.

“The Vampire Chronicles” should appear at the end of 2022, shortly afterwards “The Lives of the Mayfair Witches” should follow.

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A man named Nicholas gets care in an ambulance after overdosing in San Francisco, Calif.

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A man named Nicholas gets care in an ambulance after overdosing in San Francisco, Calif.

Rachel Bujalski for NPR

It’s a sun-filled, fall day and Nicholas is strapped to an ambulance gurney near 8th and Market streets in downtown San Francisco, dazed and barely conscious. Plastic IV tubes snake around his left hand where L-O-V-E is tattooed just below his knuckles.

“Nicholas, try to wake up a little bit for me, come on,” paramedic Paula Fartash coaxes, as she unsuccessfully tries to rouse him from his drug-induced stupor.

Nicholas (we’re not using his last name because of the stigma of addiction) tells Fartash that when he started getting high in nearby U.N. Plaza park, he assumed he was smoking his drug of choice.

“This gentleman thought that he was doing meth,” the veteran San Francisco Fire Department paramedic says. “And turned out he was actually doing fentanyl as well,” the synthetic opioid many times more powerful than heroin. “So he walked over to someone and they gave him some Narcan.”

That’s the brand name for naloxone, the emergency nasal spray drug used to try to reverse an otherwise potentially fatal overdose. That someone who administered life-saving antidote was a nearby volunteer and street cleaner carrying Narcan. It’s part of a city-supported program.

San Francisco has among the highest per capita drug overdose death rates of any city in the U.S.

Faced with a stunning rise in drug overdose deaths the last few years, the vast majority tied to fentanyl, San Francisco has launched mobile teams made up of paramedics and nurses. The new Street Overdose Response Teams (SORT), a collaboration between the city’s health and fire departments, aim to deliver a broad range of support and care directly following an overdose.

“Fentanyl is a game-changer,” Dr. Hillary Kunins, the city’s director of behavioral and mental health services, says of the opioid that’s 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. “It requires a new way of thinking and resourcing.” It also, she says, “requires people to learn to work across disciplines and sometimes across organizations.”

San Francisco Department of Public Health nurses with the Street Overdose Response Team hand out Narcan as part of a broader effort to contact and help those who have recently overdosed.

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Registered nurse Louise Bisby is part of the city’s mobile outreach team that aims to help people who recently overdosed with a broad range of support services, from treatment to housing.

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Dr. Kunins previously led New York City’s response to its overdose and substance abuse crisis. She concedes they aren’t sure what combination of tools, ultimately, will work best here to not only reduce fentanyl and other drug-related deaths but also boost treatment success rates.

So the street overdose pilot project is part of a broad and ambitious strategy of interventions across city agencies.

“There is no single approach that’s going to solve this complex problem,” Kunins says. “What’s exciting and important about the work is that it is really part of a movement across the country to rethink how we address people who are at risk of overdose, who have ongoing other challenges: mental health, housing, food. And we must do this work to scale.”

Fentanyl forced city officials to change how they approached harm reduction

Capt. Michael Mason, a paramedic, is the fire department’s point person on the new program. As he races to the call for Nicholas’ overdose, he’s simultaneously coordinating with other paramedics.

“So starting directly at the scene of this overdose, we can start trying to direct this guy’s care in the best direction possible,” Mason says.

That direct engagement could include helping to find a shelter bed, reaching out to friends or a doctor, helping with food or, most importantly, seeing if a person wants to start treatment with buprenorphine or suboxone, a medicated-assisted therapy for opioid dependence.

“Get this individual suboxone, stabilize him at the [emergency department], by that afternoon they can be in a treatment program,” Mason says, “All in the context of a 911 incident.”

For many years San Francisco has championed a harm reduction public health approach to lowering drug deaths and injury. The city, known for its relative tolerance of illicit drug use, was a pioneer of clean syringe access, distribution of life-saving naloxone kits, as well as boosting access to the treatment drugs methadone and buprenorphine.

But when fentanyl hit hard here starting a few years ago, the overdose crisis spiraled and the city was forced to rethink its approach. Free Narcan and syringes weren’t enough.

San Francisco Department of Public Health nurses with the city’s new mobile outreach teams say following up with people who’ve recently survived a drug overdose is a key part of the program.

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“If fentanyl is in the drugs that you’re using, your risk of overdose triples,” Capt. Mason says, adding that the drug is now tainting most every street narcotic here: Meth, cocaine, heroin and fake opioid pills.

The new street response teams bring the clinic to the patients

Pandemic isolation and lockdowns — people using alone with no one to administer life-saving Narcan — only partially explain the historic rise in overdose deaths here.

The drug death rate, in fact, had been trending higher well before that, city medical examiner data show. In mid-2018 the numbers began to skyrocket, reaching 441 deaths in 2019. And in 2020, a whopping 712 people fatally overdosed, more than double the number of people here who died from COVID-19 during that same period.

The vast majority of those deaths – almost three-quarters –involved fentanyl.

The death toll would have been even higher if not for the wide availability of Narcan here. Well over 3,000 people reported using Narcan in the city in 2020, a self-reported figure. Officials say the real figure is probably far higher.

But health and fire department officials here, Mason says, noticed something else important: almost half of all who died of an overdose were treated or revived by a paramedic crew in the days or weeks before their death, a big signal they were headed for repeat trouble.

“Surviving a nonfatal overdose is one of the best predictors of future mortality. Anyone who survives a non-fatal overdose is a huge red flag for us, and that is what this program is about,” he says.

A key goal is trying to bring the clinic to the patients: rapid, face-to-face follow-up outreach on the street.

“We go out, we look for them, we say, ‘Hey, let’s talk about yesterday,'” says city health department nurse practitioner Kevin Lagor, as he drives through the Tenderloin neighborhood, where many of his clients live. He’s a program lead with SORT’s outreach arm.

The goal is to reach back out within 24 to 72 hours of an overdose to try to assist the person with everything from housing to treatment.

“That could be providing medical care to address their mental illness. Maybe they’re out of their meds, or maybe they want to start something to address their substance use disorder,” he says. “Just kind of, basically, meeting them where they are and seeing what they need and how we can help them.”

But to meet them where they are, the nurse teams first have to find them.

It’s a huge challenge. Many of them are homeless, living in tents on the street or in and out of shelters.

The overdose and substance abuse crisis is directly linked to the city’s epic struggles with homelessness and related challenges including mental illness. Almost 30% of all overdose deaths here are among the unhoused or people “with no fixed address.” SORT collaborates closely with the city’s other programs, including street medicine and new mental health and homeless street crisis response units.

Neil, we’re not using his full name because of his illegal drug use, is homeless and living in the city’s Tenderloin district. He says he smokes the powerful opioid fentanyl to deal with depression and chronic stomach pain.

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Homeless people living in tents line a side street in the Tenderloin district. More than 40% of all drug overdoses are in the Tenderloin and neighboring SOMA district, according to city data.

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City data show that men were almost four-times more likely to die of an accidental overdose than women. And the homeless, older San Franciscans and minority communities were disproportionately affected by the death rate. Almost quarter of all overdose deaths are among Black San Franciscans who make up just under 6% of the city’s population.

More than 40% of all overdose deaths in the last year have been concentrated in two neighborhoods: the South of Market area and the Tenderloin, according to data from the city and county chief medical examiner’s office. Those areas make up just 7% of the city’s population.

While drug deaths hit every sector of society, many who overdosed were found in city-funded hotel rooms for the homeless and in low-income apartment buildings.

“We have to remember that this is a social crisis at the intersection, particularly in San Francisco, of a housing crisis, of a mental health crisis, of people living at the margins of society,” says Dr. Dan Ciccarone, a professor and researcher at University of California, San Francisco.

Open air drug use and dealing in the Tenderloin, an area long challenged by poverty, homelessness and addiction crises, has only worsened during the pandemic. It’s common, day or night, to see people smoking or shooting up opioids or nodding out from drug use.

One 32-year-old man named Neil says he’s been homeless and living on the streets, mainly in the Tenderloin, for three years now. We’re not using his last name because of the stigma of addiction.

He says he uses fentanyl “to take the edge off” off of his depression and chronic stomach pain. He occasionally sells drugs, he says, to get money to support his habit. He soon crushes a small amount of fentanyl into a piece of tinfoil and begins to smoke the drug.

Follow-up work by nurses is full of challenges

On a recent day, nurse Lagor has half a dozen clients listed on his clipboard. He can’t find a single person.

“So we’ll just kind of keep following up with the staff at the shelter,” he says in the lobby of one facility, having been unable to find a client.

The same happens at a makeshift tent encampment behind a local Best Buy.

Outside another shelter, Lagor and his team strike out again trying to find a young man they thought they were making progress with. They’d recently written him a prescription for a supply of buprenorphine.

“He hasn’t been here in a couple of days,” Lagor says, disappointed.

“It is a bad sign. Sometimes folks disappear for a couple days and then resurface,” he says. “Then they disappear, or it just falls apart.”

And when it all falls apart, it can hit Lagor and the rest of his team hard.

“It’s a lot of death and they’re not strangers. You know, we’ve had a couple of deaths this week and we’ve, we shed tears together,” Lagor says. “It’s hard not to care about someone when you’re really trying to help them.”

Addiction and public health experts say these mobile, non-police teams mark a much-needed pivot for the city.

“It’s bold and it’s innovative. I like it,” says Dr. Ciccarone, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and a leading expert on drug use, drug users and heroin. “We need to bring in some innovations here because fentanyl is a wild card and it has caught us all by surprise. That’s what we need to do in a crisis situation: Think creatively.”

City public health department nurses Kevin Lagor and Louise Bisby, part of new mobile outreach teams, get supplies out of their SUV to bring to people who have recently survived a drug overdose.

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But Dr. Ciccarone cautions that the ravages of fentanyl and its complex stew of related challenges mean the city needs to scale-up this new street overdose response program and continue to try to break down obstacles to treatment that include bureaucratic silos, turf battles and funding woes.

“It’s definitely not enough,” he says. “We have to make sure that harm reduction is adequately funded, that our mental health system, our substance treatment system, our housing systems are adequately funded.”

So far, just two months since the program’s launch, 10% of those encountered by the SORT teams who’ve overdosed are now getting medicated assisted treatment for opioid use disorder. That includes buprenorphine or suboxone in collaboration with city’s street medicine nurses.

“I’m proud of that number,” Capt. Mason says, “and I very much look forward to increasing that.”

To get that number even higher, the fire department has applied to the state EMS agency to allow paramedics to more easily administer and prescribe those treatment drugs directly in the field.

Despite a recent slight drop in monthly fatalities the city looks to end 2021 with more than 700 overdose deaths for the second year in a row. Unfortunately, Dr. Kunins, the city’s director of behavioral health services, says San Francisco is “on track to continue this really tragic loss of life.”

Paramedics on the team look for small victories

Back on the street, another call comes in from the 911 dispatcher for a possible overdose. A middle-aged woman has been found slumped over in a McDonald’s bathroom across town in the Fillmore district.

Capt. Mason’s occasional staccato siren squawks aren’t working on a handful of indifferent drivers and pedestrians in heavy rush-hour traffic. So he hits his fire truck’s lights sirens full bore.

When they arrive, the woman tells the paramedics she has relapsed after several months of sobriety.

The heroin she bought, Mason says, was likely laced with fentanyl. Narcan saved her.

Inside the ambulance, Mason says the woman handed paramedics a crumpled, greasy brown fast-food bag and asks that they get rid of it.

“There were some clean syringes in there and what appeared to be small bags of heroin.”

Paramedic Capt. Michael Mason, of the San Francisco Fire Department, takes a bag of drugs and paraphernalia to a nearby police station for disposal. The drugs were from a woman who’d just overdosed in a nearby fast food restaurant.

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Fire Department Capt. Michael Mason with the city’s Street Overdose Response Team arrives at the scene of a reported drug overdose in downtown San Francisco.

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Mason finds out she was already part of a medicated-assisted treatment program using suboxone. He says she told them that she wants to get sober again.

“She was feeling extreme shame from experiencing a relapse,” he says. “Substance use disorder impacts millions of Americans. There’s no shame in having a relapse.”

He hopes she restarts her suboxone treatment quickly.

“As for today,” Mason says, “and as for surrendering those items and requesting they be disposed of, my hat’s off to her.”

The paramedics and nurses involved in this pilot project are dedicated to this difficult work. But all say working across multiple city agencies, treatment centers, health providers and non-profits can be exhausting.

“It’s complicated,” Mason says with a sigh, “it takes work from dozens of folks in a single encounter.”

How does he handle the strain of 12-hour shifts filled racing from overdose to overdose, including to some who seemingly don’t want help and others who don’t survive?

“For my own mental health, I have to kind of remain an optimistic warrior,” he says, driving his fire department pick-up through rush hour traffic. “There’s a quote in the Talmud that says, I won’t get it exactly right, but essentially says, “You don’t have to end this work, but you do have to start it.'”

And the woman who overdosed in the McDonald’s bathroom who wants help again? It’s a small victory.

Maybe.

It’s a start.

The post As drug ODs in San Francisco soar, a brand new speedy response group races to save lots of lives : NPR appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

After Biden was informed of a US drone mission in eastern Afghanistan that the Pentagon said killed two members of Islamic State on Saturday, he promised further attacks on ISIS-K, the group responsible for the bombings in Kabul.

In the Bay Area, more than 200 protesters gathered in the UN Plaza, focusing on peace.

The event began with the organizers playing the song “Sarzamine Man,” also known as “My Homeland,” followed by several speakers including Mary Steiner, President of the United Nations Chapter of San Francisco, Nahid Aria, Dari- Translator and coordinator for Afghan operations with the Alameda District Attorney and Shahid Buttar, an attorney and candidate for California’s 12th Congressional District.

A solidarity protest marches down Market Street in San Francisco on Saturday, August 28, 2021. (Annelise Finney / KQED)

Aziza Popal, who attended the rally, said she fled Afghanistan on religious grounds many years ago because she was unable to practice Islam under the then rule of the Soviet Union. On Saturday she came to protest for voiceless people in her former home. “I am here to speak out on behalf of all men and women. We are very dismayed by what is happening in Afghanistan right now,” she said.

Marena Habibi, an organizer of the rally, said the thousands of refugees now entering the Bay Area may not receive food aid, cash aid or shelter, and urged protesters to seek more support from their representatives in the government. Afghans arriving in the United States can qualify for the state and state levels using a variety of legal terminology, and refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and probation officers are all eligible for a variety of programs and services.

“President Biden, you did not end the war, you created global chaos and we are now seeing the consequences,” she said. “These Afghans have been betrayed by the world and need help now.”

Protest organizers said the US-led war had disintegrated Afghan society. “Afghan citizens have no choice but to flee their homes or to stay and risk death from these forces,” the organizers wrote in a statement.

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SANTA ROSA (KPIX 5) – When two North Bay veterinarians volunteer, they save two lives: the person’s life and the life of their pet.

The veterinarians Dr. Kate Kuzminski and Dr. Sarah Reidenbach converted an ambulance into a free veterinary clinic on wheels.

Recently, it offered services outside of The Living Room, a domestic violence sanctuary in Santa Rosa. Kuzminski says the mission is to break the cycle of abuse.

“We know that in households with domestic violence and child abuse, 80 percent also have animal abuse,” she said.

But Reidenbach adds that getting out is not easy.

“Domestic violence survivors – up to 50 percent – are not left at risk if they cannot bring their pets,” she said.

NOMINATE A JEFFERSON AWARD HERO

Pet-friendly shelters require pets to be fully vaccinated and healthy before they are admitted. That’s why the two founded Ruthless Kindness in 2017. The non-profit organization works with around a dozen animal shelters for victims of abuse and the homeless.

Reidenbach and Kuzminski will receive calls around the clock to help with veterinary care and vaccines so a pet can accompany its owner in an animal shelter in search of safety.

“A woman who leaves or tries an abusive situation shouldn’t depend on her dog to be vaccinated,” said Kuzminski.

To date, Ruthless Kindness has helped about 300 pets in Sonoma County, in part through free monthly medical clinics like Dogwood Animal Rescue, which have volunteers who do everything from cutting nails to distributing donations like pet food and beds.

Dogwood volunteer Beth Jackson is amazed at what Kuzminski and Reidenbach have created.

“Not only do you save lives, but you also help people in need they cannot afford,” said Jackson.

One recipient just adopted two kittens and they received free vaccinations and pet food at the mobile clinic before they were all returned to the shelter where she lives.

“I’m just overwhelmed that there are people who are kind enough to give them time,” said Jen, not wanting to use her last name. “It’s a relief because I didn’t know how to get their shots.”

LEARN MORE: Jefferson Awards for Public Service

The co-founders of Ruthless Kindness both have full-time jobs outside of the nonprofit. Reidenbach is the managing director of Sonoma CART, an animal disaster team. Kuzminski is the medical director of guide dogs for the blind.

Your charitable work is entirely voluntary and is supported by donations and a generous helping of compassion.

“I’m a domestic violence survivor too, so I was able to need help,” Reidenbach said. “Serving the community I belong to is beautiful. I love to be able to do that. “

“It feels rewarding, but it feels like we should,” added Kuzminski.

That’s why this week’s Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Dr. Kate Kuzminski and Dr. Sarah Reidenbach for spreading “Ruthless Friendliness” to people at risk and their pets.

The post North Bay Veterinarians Saving Animal, Human Lives With Volunteer Cell Pet Clinic – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

It’s been over 13 months since the Kentucky police killed Breonna Taylor, and just under a year since Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.

These high profile African American deaths, along with many others, sparked global protests and resulted in politicians and activists on the political left calling out their cities and towns. Counties to defuse their police stations.

More specifically, many of them are urging their elected officials to reallocate money in the police budget for more social service-oriented interventions in order to reduce the number of violent police encounters.

However, some cities in California – Sacramento, San Diego, and Los Angeles – are planning exactly the opposite.

From 2019 to 2020, Sacramento’s approved police budget increased by over $ 7 million. This year, the California capital will spend a record $ 165.8 million on police, an increase of $ 9.4 million.

However, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg says that by mid-2022 at least $ 10 million will be transferred from the police department to the community response department.

“I’m not in favor of defunding,” Steinberg told the Sacramento Bee. “There are some things that are part of running a city like collective bargaining and binding arbitration, and real needs for the police department.”

“I’m not going to limit myself to arguing that the measure of whether or not we invest aggressively in the community is whether or not we take the money directly from the police,” he continued.

In San Diego, the city plans to increase the police budget for the eleventh year in a row.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria proposed a 3% increase in police spending next year, meaning the police budget has increased a total of 52% since 2008.

The city is introducing this increase with a decrease in library hours to offset these costs.

San Diego City Council president Georgette Gómez said she planned to cut the police budget, but former Mayor Kevin Faulconer vetoed the move.

Gloria has expressed an interest in reducing police spending over time, but activists insist more needs to be done.

In Los Angeles, after two reports from the Los Angeles City Council and the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners warning the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for mistreating several protests over the past year, the LAPD has announced that it will raise the number Budgets around $ 67 million just to cope with the cost of reforming the protest response alone.

During various protests in the summer of 2020, the police arrested over 3,000 people without housing those arrested.

Police Chief Michel Moore admitted the protest reaction could have been handled better, but claimed that because of their training, most of his officers reacted the way they did.

“While there have been missteps and deficits in communication, leadership and control, particularly among senior executives, the vast majority of employees have performed admirably in their ongoing efforts to serve the city relentlessly, even in the face of antagonistic and violent crowds . ” Moore wrote a letter to the Board of Commissioners.

According to deputy chief Dominic Choi, this proposed budget increase for salaries and overtime will be used for advanced training.

The Police Commission has not moved on to the proposed budget and the LAPD needs city council approval before it can go into effect. On the flip side, in addition to the $ 67 million LAPD requested, Mayor Eric Garcetti has proposed a $ 50 million increase in the police budget, much to the horror of the members of the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter organization.

While some of these budget proposals are still under scrutiny and would not come into full effect until next year, they are far from disappointing police.

Despite a growing number of votes against it, more Golden State taxes are likely to be used to increase funding for “California’s Best.”

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