(Reuters) - California Republican gubernatorial hopeful Neel Kashkari called for free college tuition for students pursuing math and science degrees, part of an education reform plan released Tuesday that would also model public schools after charter schools. Kashkari's proposal would waive tuition for students pursuing a four-year degree in any science, technology, electronics, or math subject in exchange for a percentage of their future earnings after graduation.

Music producers, DJs and vocalists make up the Oakland-based nonprofit Today’s Future Sound, which teaches music production to students in K-12 schools around the bay and beyond. In its infancy, TFS was a natural convergence of Elliot Gann’s training as a clinical psychologist and his love of hip-hop.

For starters, the mere idea that there would be a treatment for Morquio defied convention. The disease is so rare – health experts estimate it occurs in just one of every 200,000 births – there was little motivation for pharmaceutical companies to conduct the expensive research and testing needed to develop a new drug.

Despite an increased demand for food assistance in Oakland and other cities across the US, food stamp benefits have been cut as the federal economic stimulus came to an end this month, marking the end of a four-year period that brought additional funding to social welfare programs. Marcshea White, an East Oakland resident who became permanently disabled with two herniated discs in her back, and her family are just one of the 30,000 households in Oakland that receive benefits from CalFresh, the state’s food stamp program, each month.

Nearly a century ago, the warehouse on Jefferson and 4 th Street in Oakland was a brass foundry. Back then, workers melted scrap metals to create the amber alloy that was a staple in the manufacturing of products from industrial tools to the trumpets like those that brought Louis Armstrong’s music to life.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are involved in a new state contract for prison health care, but there’s no telling now exactly much money California is spending under the agreement, which takes effect in just weeks. Even lawmakers are kept in the dark. Some details will be released after a year has passed, she noted.

Clark Kelso, California’s federally appointed prison health-care receiver, has turned over a controversial health-care contract with Health Net to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee and State Auditor Elaine Howle. Committee Chairman Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, said the panel would review the contract — which remains confidential, in part because of exemptions under the Public Records Act — and release a review of its findings.

Food makers and food lovers converged at Jack London Square September 27-29 for three days of music, drinks and cuisine at the Eat Real Festival . Musicians like the Afrobeat collective Jambalaya and the neo-soul performers MAD NOISE gave crowd-moving performances on the festival’s main waterfront stage.

Demand for assistance from the local food bank and the state’s food stamp program CalFresh has continued to climb in Oakland and throughout Alameda County long after the great recession of 2008 has officially ended. This data suggests recovery hasn’t yet arrived for people living without food security.

A newly released plan, the first step in protecting and exploiting the water resources within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, paints a bleak picture of the heart of California’s water system. The long-awaited study was issued by the Delta Stewardship Council, a state agency charged with adopting an official policy for the next nine decades targeting the environmentally endangered Delta and the Suisun Marsh.

Arielle Colter, one-and-a-half-years old, had just finished her second round of chemotherapy before toddling into the playroom on the 5 th floor of the Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland. When her mother and father, Cynthia Londo and Cole Colter, brought her here from Modesto this past August, Arielle was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that develops in the nerve tissues, most commonly in infants and children.

With the state facing a $15.4 billion budget shortfall, social programs across California are cutting costs by limiting eligibility. So why are state lawmakers voting to enroll more people in CalFresh, the state’s food stamp program, if there’s not enough money to go around? Lawmakers say an expanded food stamp program may actually help improve the economy at no cost to the state’s ailing general fund — though taxpayers in California and elsewhere will continue to foot the bill for the federally funded program.

California’s Legislature is so polarized over the state budget that lawmakers in recent years have mostly kicked the problem down the road. But even when lawmakers do agree and the governor goes along, they don’t have the final say. The state and federal courts have repeatedly intervened in the operation of California government, preventing budget cuts approved by legislators of both parties and even forcing the state to spend billions of dollars more than lawmakers approved.

In Oakland’s Chinatown, Michael Tran has been talking to young people in the Asian community about the importance of healthcare – a complex topic in which they aren’t readily interested. “Folks in our community, they’re not totally engaged in the process. There are a lot of cultural barriers and many of them work long hours.

Los Angeles residents have been visiting First Street Pharmacy to have their prescriptions filled since the early 1970’s. The spot has garnered a multi-generational following of locals who knew the shop’s owner, Dr. Robert Ramirez, when he was just a kid. They come to Ramirez because he knows their families and their symptoms and because he’ll let them delay payment when he knows they’re low on funds.

In California’s state Capitol, they call it counter-cyclical, a mundane term used to describe the volatile rollercoaster effect of a bad economy on government-run social programs. As the economy and tax revenues decline, demand for many state-run programs increases, putting more stress on the budget just when it can handle it least.