Breaking News

Back to homepage

State senator wants to give CA homeless a ‘right to shelter’

Democratic lawmakers are already gearing up for brawls with Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom over costly efforts to expand state government with a single-payer health care system and a bold new push for subsidized pre-kindergarten education. Now, another ambitious bill with a

Read More

Efforts to limit pollution by building housing near transit centers meet stiff resistance

Over the past dozen years, the California environmental lobby has never seemed more powerful in the Legislature and in state government. Under Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, the Golden State has passed bold laws and emerged as the global

Read More

PG&E may have violated its criminal probation from San Bruno disaster

Pacific Gas & Electric – the giant investor-owned utility that serves 16 million Californians – appears to be facing its gravest crisis since its founding in 1905. The initial indications that PG&E’s equipment may have sparked the Camp Fire that killed at

Read More

Political corruption again grabbing headlines in L.A.

After a brief lull in 2017, there’s now another embarrassing chapter in Los Angeles County’s emergence as an epicenter of American political corruption. Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar has been stripped of all his council committee assignments after having

Read More

PG&E may not survive latest wildfire without more state help

How much of wildfire costs not covered by insurance should be paid by California’s giant investor-owner utilities has been a significant issue since at least 2007. That’s when wildfires ravaged northern and eastern San Diego County, killing two people and

Read More

Second-largest CA firm may be preparing for move to Texas

California could be on the brink of one of its biggest corporate defections yet with the signs that McKesson Corp. – the pharmaceutical giant that is sixth on the Fortune 500 list – is preparing to move its headquarters from San Francisco

Read More

Props 1, 2 would have marginal effect in adding housing

It’s been two and a half years since Gov. Jerry Brown jolted the debate on California’s housing crisis by saying much more private-sector construction was the only realistic way to address the crisis, not the old Democratic recipe of building

Read More

Poll shows heavy support for local control over housing

In January 2017, state lawmakers returned to the Capitol determined to make a difference on the state housing crisis. Dozens of bills were touted – including Senate Bill 35, by state Sen. Scott Weiner, D-San Francisco, which ended up as the

Read More

Trump memo orders Central Valley water changes

The Trump administration has launched a bold effort to up-end water policies in the Central Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, calling for big changes that would favor farmers over endangered species in allocating water. Helping craft the administration’s

Read More

Massive new K-12 report offers downbeat findings in four areas

In 2007, researchers associated with Stanford University released “Getting Down to Facts” – a massive compilation of studies of the California K-12 public school system. The hundreds of pages of voluminous research allowed both the state education establishment and its critics

Read More