Stories you shouldn’t miss for Dec. 18, 2017:
1. The GOP-controlled Congress is poised this week to enact a large tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, the Washington Post$ reports. Republicans appear to have just enough votes for passage, although they will have to do it without U.S. Sen. John McCain, who returned to Arizona following cancer treatment. The legislation will raise also taxes on millions of middle-class Americans, particularly in California. The GOP also faces a Friday deadline to keep the federal government from shutting down.
2. Scientists have linked radiation produced by cellphones, wireless networks, and power lines to increased rates of miscarriage, reports Sophie Haigney of the San Francisco Chronicle, citing a new Kaiser Permanente study, published last week in the journal Scientific Reports. Pregnant women exposed to radiation from cellphones and other electromagnetic fields were nearly three times more likely to miscarry.
3. The Bay Area’s extreme housing shortage is prompting an increasing number of people to live in RVs, reports Louis Hansen of the Bay Area News Group$. The “number of residents in Alameda County lacking permanent shelter jumped nearly 40 percent since 2015, with 5,600 people now considered homeless.”
4. More than 17,000 people commute to the Bay Area from Sacramento because of the lack of affordable housing in the Bay, reports Phillip Reese of the Sacramento Bee$.
5. Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco abruptly announced his retirement Monday, following allegations of sexual misconduct from at least 15 women, reports Sarah Ravani of the San Francisco Chronicle.
6. And California Democratic Party’s East Bay director Craig Cheslog resigned from his post following allegations that he sexually harassed a 23-year-old woman, the East Bay Times$ reports.
$ = news stories that may require payment to read.