A film about the death of American activist Rachel Corrie is causing a stir at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, which began Thursday.

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival opened its 29th season Thursday night amid controversy surrounding one of its 71 films, which has the Jewish community up in arms.

Simone Bitton’s film “Rachel” is a documentary about the controversial death of 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie in 2003. Corrie was volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank when an Israeli army bulldozer crushed her during the demolition of Palestinian homes.

What kindled the criticism from the Jewish community was the invitation of Corrie’s mother, Cindy Corrie, to speak after the Saturday afternoon screening at the Castro Theatre.

A new, national study on HIV infection will look at San Francisco's gay black male community's level of participation in HIV intervention measures – including testing, counseling and other health and social services.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health HIV Research Section AIDS Office will be conducting the San Francisco part of the UNITY study.

Among men who have sex with men in this country, black men have the highest rate of HIV infection. Jennifer Sarche, community educator for the Department of Public Health AIDS Office, said that one theory for this is that gay black men as a population have a smaller sexual network than gay white males.

A concerted last-minute campaign by the San Francisco public defender to restore previously cut funds succeeded as the Board of Supervisors passed a revised $6.7 billion budget Tuesday.

The budget was the culmination of months of wrangling among agencies and political factions that pitted, most audibly, social services and public health agencies against public safety to bridge an unprecedented funding gap of more than $400 million.

Winners Tuesday also included public financing of political campaigns, children's services and the district attorney.

The police department’s top brass, the convention center, the ballet, the opera and a nonprofit theater all lost out, as their budgets were gouged to balance the city’s ledger.

The 9-2 budget vote came after months of adjustments and political trading that left few completely satisfied.

By Hank Drew
The Public Press

A program supported by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom could provide artists with a storefront gallery of their own, SF Gate reported Tuesday .

Art in Storefronts is the brainchild of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Arts Commission, and would allow artists to display their work -- for a small charge -- in abandoned storefronts in areas impacted by the economy.

By Samantha McGirr
The Public Press

San Franciscans struggling to find or keep housing just got a helping hand from the federal government in the form of nearly $9 million in grant money.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has granted the city $8.75 million in stimulus funds as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program.

By Samantha McGirr
The Public Press

As Congress debates strategies for national health care reform, the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to determine the fate of “Healthy San Francisco,” the city’s groundbreaking health care program for the uninsured and working poor.

By Jessica Alexander Wertheim
The Public Press

BART's largest union, the Service Employees International Union Local 1021, is voting on a revised four-year contract proposal Thursday at the Oakland Marriott City Center through 8 a.m. Friday, a proposal that was rejected earlier this week by the transit agency's second-largest union.

By Samantha McGirr
The Public Press

PG&E says it has identified the cause of the huge vault fire last month that occurred at the corner of Polk and O’Farrell in the Tenderloin district.

The San Francisco Fire Department is the only major city division whose overtime pay has grown in the last year -– straining the budget in a season when nearly every department has had to make painful sacrifices to help bridge a $438 million deficit.

And as politicians tussled last month with firefighters and police over more than $80 million in proposed cuts, neither side in the debate focused on what all acknowledge as a worrisome development: the expensive and unrestrained growth of firefighters' extra pay for working longer hours.

The unparalleled growth can be traced to a series of events. First, overtime spending spiked after voters passed a 2004 proposition requiring 24-hour staffing. Spending continued to climb in 2007, after Mayor Gavin Newsom and the fire union negotiated a large election-year pay increase for fire employees, while instituting a hiring freeze and mandatory overtime. The department said that was the right decision because paying overtime is cheaper than hiring new full-time employees with benefits.

Research and graphic by Mary Catherine Plunkett/The Public Press

The city's four other large departments -- police, sheriff, transportation and public health -- all managed to decrease overtime by an average of 21 percent in the last year. And they are slated for 39 percent in further cuts in the next year.

But firefighters racked up $26.4 million in overtime in fiscal year 2008-09, an increase of 14 percent. For the coming year, firefighters foresee a cut in overtime of 18 percent.