Judges Tell San Francisco It Can Begin Health Plan
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A federal panel of judges granted San Francisco the right to require businesses with more than 20 employees to pay a fee to help cover employeesâ health care costs.
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A federal judge ruled on Friday that California's method of execution through lethal injection is unconstitutional but said it could be fixed by changing the procedure.
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Meraki Networks&#39; plan to cover San Francisco with free Wi-Fi, with residents&#39; help, could be a way around the political and business barriers some municipal wireless projects have run into.The startup, partly funded by Google, believes it will succeed&#160;where EarthLink and Google did not: Building Wi-Fi access throughout San Francisco at no cost to the city. It expects to finish by year&#39;s end, filling the whole city with 1Mbps coverage.The catch is that Meraki is footing the whole bill on this project so that&#160;it can learn how to roll out such networks for profit elsewhere. The good news, if the plan works, is that it could do so for less than $5 million, lower than the cost many other municipal wireless projects have run into. That&#39;s partly because of intelligence in access points and software, making the network more robust with fewer nodes, according to Meraki spokeswoman Erika Shaffer.Meraki will build the backbone of its network with solar-powered rooftop access points and fill out its coverage with smaller repeaters to sit in windows or on balconies. Both will be designed and built by Meraki and provided free to residents and businesses that agree to house the gear on their property in return for better coverage. All the nodes will be meshed, so Meraki won&#39;t have to get wired broadband links everywhere its access points go.The idea has potential in developing countries with little broadband, where Meraki sees its biggest market, but also in highly wired cities such as San Francisco, analysts said.A key advantage is that by asking users instead of the city for mounting rights for its gear, Meraki will bypass the rancorous political fights over contract terms like the one that slowed down EarthLink&#39;s initiative last year. But seeking volunteers also makes sure that however fully Meraki has actually covered the city by the end of the year, it is pretty sure to have coverage where people actually want it.&quot;You know exactly where your coverage needs to be, because someone just asked you for a repeater,&quot; said IDC analyst Godfrey Chua.Meraki believes it won&#39;t have any trouble getting people to host repeaters in their homes, based on its existing test networks in parts of San Francisco, Shaffer said. There are about 500 repeaters today, and about 40,000 people have used the network, she said.Another problem that would seem to solve itself, assuming the network and distribution system run smoothly, is the difficult issue of indoor coverage, said Craig Settles, an independent municipal network analyst at Successful.com. EarthLink&#39;s network was to be built largely on streetlights and electricity poles, which are well suited to mobile outdoor coverage, but not so good for providing home broadband to residents who can&#39;t afford wired alternatives, Settles said. Meraki&#39;s small repeaters are designed for indoor coverage in the home where they&#39;re located as well as to flesh out the whole network.On the San Francisco network, which Meraki will treat as a research and development cost, the company will test advertising as a possible revenue source for future deployments. When it approaches service providers that want to charge for access, it will also offer a billing system. Meraki has trials going on today with carriers in developing countries, Shaffer said.In places where most people don&#39;t yet have broadband, Meraki&#39;s approach could be an attractive low-cost alternative, analysts said. However, WiMax, which requires far fewer base stations than Wi-Fi because it has a longer range, also has relatively low costs and is already a competitor in those markets, Chua said.&quot;I doubt that Wi-Fi would be the dominant access medium in emerging markets,&quot; Chua said.
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By Art Campos, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.  Feb. 15--A legal dispute between Roseville and a nonprofit corporation that builds and provides housing for senior and disabled residents may be resolved soon.
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Celebrating the first anniversary  of his decision to issue marriage licenses to gays, San  Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom vowed on Saturday to stay at the  forefront of fights to make same-sex marriages legal.
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SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge presiding over a steroids distribution case is refusing to toss it out. But the judge in San Francisco ruled three defendants can try to convince her that statements made to investigators
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By Constance Loizos, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.  Jun.
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By Chris Metinko, Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.  Jan. 30--A nearly decade-old saga surrounding plans to build a new Christian school in Castro Valley is set to begin perhaps its most consequential chapter in U.S. District Court in San Francisco next month.
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Latest licensing deal signals a move into the health-care arena.
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Ten months after San Francisco's mayor defiantly granted marriage licenses to thousands of gay couples, a judge began hearing arguments Wednesday in a pair of lawsuits that seek to have California's one-man, one-woman matrimony law declared unconstitutional.
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San Francisco stores selling high-calorie sodas should pay millions of dollars a year to offset the health-care costs related to obesity, the city's mayor said on Monday.
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In his ruling, the judge said federal law already covers some of the same provisions that the city sought to put in place.
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Healthcare in California prisons has improved greatly since a federal judge seized control of the system two years ago, but the judge said on Wednesday that more steps are needed to bring standards to constitutional levels.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge on Monday stayed his own ruling that UPS must give deaf and hearing impaired workers the same opportunity as others to become truck drivers, allowing the company to appeal.
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Parcel-shipping giant UPS, among one of the nation&#39;s largest employers, can&#39;t refuse to consider deaf workers for truck driving jobs, a federal judge in San Francisco has ruled.
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Montgomery County ponders investment needed to expand health care initiative.
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In his first State of the City speech, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said it was time to move forward. &quot;I did not run for mayor to lead a city in retreat,&quot; he said.