By Phred Dvorak
Wall Street Journal

An innovative San Francisco health-care law is prompting some businesses to raise prices and curtail hiring. But it also is showing early signs of doing what it was intended to do: push employers to defray medical costs for more workers. San Francisco's law aims to provide affordable health care to the city's estimated 73,000 uninsured residents, roughly half of whom work. It requires businesses with 20 or more employees to spend a minimum amount toward their health care, either by providing insurance, reimbursing medical expenses or contributing to a municipal health-services program. The first payments by big companies to the city's program were due last week. Read more »

By John Upton
San Francisco Examiner

San Franciscans will be able to purchase absolution for some of their environmental sins under a new city program that will use the funds to reduce climate changing emissions from government work and from local businesses and residents. Activities powered by fossil fuels or bio-fuels, such as driving, flying or building a bridge, change the Earth’s weather by increasing the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air — a phenomenon scientists call global warming. An array of new businesses have recently begun selling what’s known as carbon offsets, which reduce the effects of carbon dioxide emissions by paying for projects that fight global warming. Read more »

Editorial: San Francisco Examiner

Newsom has spent the last four years crafting nonideological and pragmatic solutions to The City’s myriad problems. He made his first big splash, both locally and nationally, by backing gay marriage, a stance that positively cemented his standing with many San Franciscans. But he’s shown a refreshing ability to buck San Francisco’s prevailing liberal winds and pursue more moderate agendas. His support of development both downtown and in existing neighborhoods and new industries such as biotech have been refreshing, as has his budgetary support for more police on the streets and nuts-and-bolts priorities such as parks and well-kept roads rather than ill-defined social causes prized by the left. Read more »

By Ellen Lee
San Francisco Chronicle

MySpace, the popular social-networking destination, is opening an office this week in San Francisco and plans to hire as many as 200 employees as it moves to redesign its site, introduce features and fend off rivals such as Facebook. The San Francisco office, in the SoMa neighborhood near AT&T Park, will focus on enhancing MySpace's infrastructure, creating products and forging strategic partnerships - some of which are expected to be announced this week. "We literally planned out all the products we're going to build in the next year or two. We don't have enough engineers to do what we want to do," MySpace Chief Executive Officer Chris DeWolfe said. "Clearly, San Francisco and Silicon Valley attract the top engineering talent in the world. ... It's going to allow us to develop incredibly rapidly."

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By Ryan Kim
San Francisco Chronicle

The Wikimedia foundation, the force behind the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is moving its headquarters to San Francisco this winter. Founder Jimmy Wales said Wednesday the small operation is packing up its office in St. Petersburg, Fla., and moving to San Francisco in an attempt to create a larger brand, attract more talent and make better inroads in developing countries, particularly in Asia. Wikipedia, which is edited largely by volunteers, is among the 10 most visited Internet sites in the world. "San Francisco won out for all the obvious reasons - the Internet culture, the great developers and potential partners. It's really the place to be," Wales said. "We're a major Internet brand and this is where a lot of the major brands are located."

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By The Milken Institute

In a groundbreaking study released by the Milken Institute, the annual economic impact on the U.S. economy of the most common chronic diseases is calculated to be more than $1 trillion, which could balloon to nearly $6 trillion by the middle of the century. Yet the news is not entirely grim because much of this cost is avoidable. "An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease" brings to light for the first time what is often overlooked in the discussion of the impact of chronic disease — the economic loss associated with preventable illness and the cost to the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and American businesses in lost growth.

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New studies show that California students are turning their back on higher education at an alarming rate. We rank 40th in the United States when it comes to the number of high school students entering college. Now more then ever we need to invest in our future to maintain a competitive workforce. Today, Mayor Gavin Newsom, in collaboration with the San Francisco Unified School District and San Francisco State University, took a major step toward reversing this trend by announcing S.F. Promise. This visionary program guarantees acceptance at S.F. State for each eligible 6th grader who completes a seven year college prep course, starting in the 2008-2009 school year.
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