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Diversify or die: San Francisco’s downtown is a wake-up call for other cities
Legal News Update |
2023/07/17 12:53
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Jack Mogannam, manager of Sam’s Cable Car Lounge in downtown San Francisco, relishes the days when his bar stayed open past midnight every night, welcoming crowds that jostled on the streets, bar hopped, window browsed or just took in the night air.
He’s had to drastically curtail those hours because of diminished foot traffic, and business is down 30%. A sign outside the lounge pleads: “We need your support!”
“I’d stand outside my bar at 10 p.m. and look, it would be like a party on the street,” Mogannam said. “Now you see, like, six people on the street up and down the block. It’s a ghost town.”
After a three-year exile, the pandemic now fading from view, the expected crowds and electric ambience of downtown have not returned.
Empty storefronts dot the streets. Large “going out of business” signs hang in windows. Uniqlo, Nordstrom Rack and Anthropologie are gone. Last month, the owner of Westfield San Francisco Centre, a fixture for more than 20 years, said it was handing the mall back to its lender, citing declining sales and foot traffic. The owner of two towering hotels, including a Hilton, did the same.
Shampoo, toothpaste and other toiletries are locked up at downtown pharmacies. And armed robbers recently hit a Gucci store in broad daylight.
San Francisco has become the prime example of what downtowns shouldn’t look like: vacant, crime-ridden and in various stages of decay. But in truth, it’s just one of many cities across the U.S. whose downtowns are reckoning with a post-pandemic wake-up call: diversify or die.
As the pandemic bore down in early 2020, it drove people out of city centers and boosted shopping and dining in residential neighborhoods and nearby suburbs as workers stayed closer to home. Those habits seem poised to stay.
No longer the purview of office workers, downtowns must become around-the-clock destinations for people to congregate, said Richard Florida, a specialist in city planning at the University of Toronto. |
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First over-the-counter birth control pill gets FDA approval
Legal News Update |
2023/07/13 10:12
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U.S. officials have approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, which will let American women and girls buy contraceptive medication from the same aisle as aspirin and eyedrops.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it cleared Perrigo’s once-a-day Opill to be sold without a prescription, making it the first such medication to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter. The company won’t start shipping the pill until early next year, and there will be no age restrictions on sales.
Hormone-based pills have long been the most common form of birth control in the U.S., used by tens of millions of women since the 1960s. Until now, all of them required a prescription.
Medical societies and women’s health groups have pushed for wider access, noting that an estimated 45% of the 6 million annual pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Teens and girls, women of color and those with low incomes report greater hurdles in getting prescriptions and picking them up.
Some of the challenges can include paying for a doctor’s visit, getting time off from work and finding child care.
“This is really a transformation in access to contraceptive care,” said Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive Health, a non-profit group that supported the approval. “Hopefully this will help people overcome those barriers that exist now.”
Ireland-based Perrigo did not announce a price. Over-the-counter medicines are generally much cheaper than prescriptions, but they typically aren’t covered by insurance.
Forcing insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control would require a regulatory change by the federal government, which women’s advocates are urging the Biden administration to implement.
Many common medications have made the switch to non-prescription status in recent decades, including drugs for pain, heartburn and allergies. Birth control pills are available without a prescription across much of South America, Asia and Africa. |
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Man gets life sentence for raping 9-year-old Ohio girl
Legal News Update |
2023/07/07 10:19
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A man who confessed to raping and impregnating a 9-year-old Ohio girl has been sentenced to life in prison in a case that became a national flashpoint on abortion rights because the girl had to travel out of state to end the pregnancy.
Gerson Fuentes, 28, was sentenced to life in prison, but his plea deal stipulates that he can seek parole after serving 25 to 30 years. He would then have to register as a sex offender.
Common Pleas Court Judge Julie Lynch, who was not required to approve the plea agreement, said the girl’s family “begged” the judge to back it. Lynch called the deal a “very hard pill for this court to swallow.”
“Anyone who’s ever been in this courtroom for the last 20 years knows how this court feels about these babies, young people, being violated,” Lynch said. “However, today, by the request of the family, this court will be sentencing without comment.”
The maximum sentence would have been life without parole. Settling the case before trial will spare the survivor from having to testify in court.
Zachary Olah, an attorney who represented Fuentes, told The Columbus Dispatch after the hearing that his client has been cooperative since the beginning.
“He was anxious to get this resolved,” Olah said.
The girl, who turned 10 before having the abortion, confirmed that Fuentes attacked her, Franklin County prosecutors have said, and Fuentes confessed to Columbus police detectives. DNA testing of the aborted fetus confirmed Fuentes was the father, prosecutors said.
Fuentes, who is from Guatemala and was living in Columbus, had been held without bond since his arrest. If he eventually wins parole, he would likely be deported given that authorities have said they have not found any evidence he is authorized to live in the U.S. legally. |
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Judge allows North Carolina’s revised 12-week abortion law to take effect
Legal News Update |
2023/07/03 14:02
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A federal judge ruled on Friday that nearly all of North Carolina’s revised 12-week abortion law scheduled to begin this weekend can take effect, while temporarily blocking one rule that doctors feared could expose them to criminal penalties.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles sets aside that rule but allows the law’s remaining provisions to begin on Saturday while litigation continues.
Abortion providers had last week requested a blanket order halting all of the July 1 restrictions pending their court challenge. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and a physician said several sections in the newly revised law were so vague and seemingly contradictory that doctors could unintentionally break the law, leaving them unable to care for women seeking legal abortions.
But the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed legislation this week revising or repealing nearly all of the challenged provisions, making arguments against most of them moot. Among other things, the lawmakers clarified that medication abortions will be legal in nearly all cases through 12 weeks, and that a lawful abortion remains an exception to North Carolina’s fetal homicide statute.
Eagles, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, had said in court that it would be overly broad to block enforcement of the entire law. Instead, she directed that for at least the next two weeks, the state cannot enforce a rule saying doctors must document the existence of a pregnancy within the uterus before conducting a medication abortion.
The abortion providers’ lawyers argued that the language raised questions about whether abortion pills can be dispensed when it’s too early in a pregnancy to locate an embryo using an ultrasound — subjecting a provider to potentially violating the law. |
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Supreme Court rules for nursing home patient’s family
Legal News Update |
2023/06/28 10:38
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The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for the family of a nursing home resident with dementia that had sued over his care, declining to use the case to broadly limit the right to sue government workers.
The man’s family went to court alleging that he was given drugs to keep him easier to manage in violation of his rights. The justices had been asked to use his case to limit the ability of people to use a federal law to sue for civil rights violations. That outcome could have left tens of millions of people participating in federal programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, without an avenue to go to court to enforce their rights.
The Supreme Court has previously said that a section of federal law — “Section 1983” — broadly gives people the right to sue state and local governments when their employees violate rights created by any federal statute.
The court by a 7-2 vote reiterated that Thursday, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writing that Section 1983 “can presumptively be used to enforce unambiguously conferred federal individual rights.” Both liberal and conservative justices joined her majority opinion while conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
The court had been asked to say that when Congress creates a federal spending program — giving states money to provide services such as Medicare and Medicaid — they shouldn’t face lawsuits from individuals under Section 1983. The court rejected that invitation.
The specific case the justices heard involves the interaction of Section 1983 and the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act, a 1987 law that outlines requirements for nursing homes that accept federal Medicare and Medicaid funds. The court was being asked to answer whether a person can use Section 1983 to go to court with claims their rights under the nursing home act are violated. The answer is yes, the court said. |
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Suspect in fatal stabbing of Cash App founder pleads not guilty
Legal News Update |
2023/05/17 09:28
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Tech consultant Nima Momeni pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge in the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee on the streets of San Francisco.
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Victor Hwang ordered Momeni, 38, kept in jail without bail, saying he posed a public safety risk if released. Momeni, who appeared in an orange sweatshirt and pants, did not speak, and his attorney Paula Canny entered the plea on his behalf.
The case has drawn national attention, partly given Lee’s status in the tech world. Lee was found with three stab wounds, including one to the heart, shortly after 2:30 a.m. April 4 and was taken to a hospital where he later died. He was found in the Rincon Hill neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, which has tech offices and condominiums but little activity in the early morning hours.
Lee, 43, created Cash App, a mobile payment service, and was the chief product officer of the cryptocurrency MobileCoin. He was mourned as a loving father of two who made friends wherever he went.
Prosecutors have not provided a motive but say Momeni stabbed Lee after a dispute related to Momeni’s sister, who appeared in court Thursday alongside their mother.
Assistant District Attorney Omid Talai argued Thursday to detain Momeni without bail, saying that the defendant drove Lee to a secluded spot and used a knife that was part of a unique kitchen set belonging to his sister. Police recovered a knife with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) blade at the scene.
Talai said that analysis showed Momeni’s DNA on the handle of the knife and Lee’s DNA on the bloody blade and no evidence that Lee had touched the handle, contradicting Canny’s claim of self-defense for her client.
But Canny said that Momeni did not drive Lee to a secluded spot with the aim of killing him. Instead, she said, Lee directed him to pull over after calling an Uber because the two had argued. The last time Momeni saw Lee, Canny said, Lee was standing upright and walking away.
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Justices to consider case involving fishing boat monitor pay
Legal News Update |
2023/05/01 18:01
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The U.S. Supreme Court will take up the subject of who pays for workers who gather valuable data aboard commercial fishing boats.
Justices announced Monday that they will take the case, which stems from a lawsuit by a group of fishermen who want to stop the federal government from making them pay for the workers. The workers are tasked with collecting data on board fishing vessels to help inform rules and regulations.
The fishermen involved in the lawsuit harvest Atlantic herring, which is a major fishery off the East Coast that supplies both food and bait. Lead plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey and other fishing groups have said federal rules unfairly require them to pay hundreds of dollars per day to contractors.
“Our way of life is in the hands of these justices, and we hope they will keep our families and our community in mind as they weigh their decision,” said Bill Bright, a New Jersey fisherman and plaintiff in the case.
The high court announced its decision to take the case via an order list that made no comment on the merits of the lawsuit. The fishermen previously lost in lower court rulings. Their lawsuit over fishing monitors is part of a long-standing fight between commercial fishing groups and the federal government over who pays for data collection and regulatory compliance.
Fishermen have argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the expense of paying for monitors.
Fisheries in the U.S. are regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A representative for NOAA declined to comment on the case. The agency does not typically comment on pending litigation.
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