Representatives from Consumer Watchdog and other groups today launched a ballot measure campaign to regulate health insurance rates in California with an event outside the San Francisco headquarters of Blue Shield of California, which is in the process of substantially increasing health premiums for a second consecutive year despite sitting on billions of dollars in cash reserves.Read more »

The Bay Citizen and Center for Investigative Journalism have formally announced their intent to merge under the leadership of Phil Bronstein, who plans to cut almost $2 million from the combined newsrooms. As I wrote last week: How can this possibly be good for local journalism? It will take 30 days to seal the deal and we'll have more reporting and analysis in the coming weeks.

UPDATED BELOW The San Francisco Chronicle's Matier and Ross love to poke snarky fun at progressives such as Matt Gonzalez, as they did again today when they wrote about his work on the Cobra Solutions vs. San Francisco case, for the second time. But they waited until the last paragraph in this second-to-last item in their column to reveal the real news: Mayor Ed Lee was deposed in the case last week and may be called as a witness.Read more »

Local, independent, public interest journalism – which is what Warren Hellman sought to create by founding the Bay Citizen in 2009 – could be undermined by a proposed merger between that newsroom and the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) under the leadership of former San Francisco Chronicle Editor Phil Bronstein.Read more »

Burners' worst fears are about to come true: they'll be denied tickets to Burning Man when the results of the new lottery-based system are announced on Wednesday. But organizers say if everyone stays calm and relies on their community then they'll probably still get tickets.Read more »

Labor and the Left came out strongly against Mayor Ed Lee’s proposed charter amendment to require all city legislation be delayed and subjected to hearings by the Small Business Commission and other commissions if it might cost private sector jobs, putting its prospects of making the ballot in doubt.

 “This legislation is one, unnecessary; two, unbalanced; and three, divisive,” Mike Casey, president of the San Francisco Labor Council – whose executive committee voted unanimously to oppose the legislation – said during today’s Rules Committee hearing on the measure.Read more »