The San Francisco Experience

Baseball cards and sports cards generally are not just a youngster's pastime. Investing in culture assets like baseball cards especially is becoming an alternative asset class. A 1952 Mickey Mantle card, for instance,  sold for $2.8 million in 2019. A new sports card fund raised $20 million and is up 35% since last September. Ryan Fagan walks us through the world of baseball cards in today's episode.

A Good Mother is Lara Bazelon's debut legal thriller novel. A Law Professor at University of San Francisco, School of Law, Lara was formerly a Public Defender in Los Angeles and brings a practitioner's experience to this courtroom drama, featuring the savvy and street smart attorney Abby Rosenberg. A compelling thriller with unexpected plot twists and turns that kept me on edge !

US births in 2020 were actually down by 400,000 by year end 2020 due to the pandemic lockdowns. Professor Levine and his team have identified a correlation between unemployment and the US birth rate: for each 1% increase in the unemployment rate, the birth rate drops by 1%. Instead of the stay at home lockdowns producing a baby boom, they actually have caused a baby bust.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has entered an uneasy stand off with an Egyptian brokered cease fire. The US, EU and other countries have pledged billions in aid to re-build, but will the underlying tensions change ? Professor Ron Hassner takes a clear eyed view of Hamas and the threat it poses to Israel and the Peace Process.

Rise Gold Corp is in the process of re-opening a historic underground gold mine, the Idaho-Maryland mine, first opened in 1863. At its' peak production in the early 1940s it employed 1000 people and was the second biggest gold mine in the US. Once operational, they will employ 300 people and mine 1000 tons of rock daily and 100,000 ounces of gold annually. Today's spot price of gold was $1879.

5 rural Oregon counties voted by wide margins on Tuesday to begin the process to join Idaho. That brings the tally to 7 for the leavers, with more than 10 more counties slated to vote on the issue. Is the driver to leave Oregon the usual rural versus urban hostility or is there something more at play ?

Media literacy is so important today since millions of Americans get their news from Social Media which unlike legacy press and TV is neither edited nor curated. Separating fact from fiction, conspiracy theory, falsehood and agitprop can be a full time job. The BBC Trending program tracks social media and shines the light of researched fact on fake news and disinformation.

An undiagnosed neurodegenerative brain disease has occurred in a cluster in New Brunswick on Canada's East Coast. 48 people in the City of Moncton and the Acadian Peninsula have been affected. The cause is unknown and no cure is in sight. Dr. Cashman a neurologist and renowned expert in prion related brain diseases discusses what we know at this point.

 San Francisco has reached the 50% mark in terms of full Covid vaccinations, with 71% of the remaining unvaccinated population saying they plan to get the shots. And more good news on the jobs front - the City by the Bay is down to a 5.4% unemployment rate, better than the national rate, 6.1%, California's rate, 8.25% and Los Angeles' rate,  9%. But what will the workplace look like when offices reopen ? Will those who work from home forego salary and career advancement ?