In a world of worsening heatwaves, flooding, drought, glacial melting, megafires and other calamities of a changing climate, Gary Gragg is an optimist. As California warms, Gragg — a nurseryman, micro-scale farmer and tropical fruit enthusiast — looks forward to the day that he can grow and sell mangoes in Northern California. “I’ve been banking […]
California
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California’s Next Housing Crackdown Could Force Cities to Plan More Homeless Shelters
All over California, cities are falling far short when it comes to providing enough shelter for their homeless communities. More than 69,000 homeless residents live in Los Angeles County, for instance, but that county has just over 21,000 beds in shelters and temporary housing programs. It’s a similar story in Sacramento County, which counted nearly […]
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Legislators Step in As Trust Erodes Between Community Colleges, California State University Systems
As two California higher education systems continue to feud, lawmakers have entered the equation using a route usually reserved for irate retirees: A strongly worded letter. The matter at hand — the 1,300-student Feather River College in rural Plumas County offering a bachelor’s degree in applied fire management — has become a lightning rod issue, […]
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Lawmakers Want to Know Why Billions in Spending isn’t Reducing Homelessness
The state has spent billions of dollars on homelessness in recent years. So why is the crisis getting worse instead of better? That’s what a bipartisan group of California legislators is trying to get to the bottom of by calling for a first-of-its kind, large-scale audit of the state’s homelessness spending. The state has stepped […]
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What Can California Do About Abortion Pill Ruling? Not Much
California’s Democratic lawmakers have spent the past year enacting legislation to protect abortion rights in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s reversal, but an April 7 ruling by a Texas federal judge is one thing they can’t touch. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk suspended the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone more than […]
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What Stands Between You and a Four-day Week
It’s Thursday evening. You pack up your things at work and hit the road. Maybe you’re thinking about a lunch plan you’ve got with a friend or a show you plan to binge. But you’re not thinking about clocking in tomorrow: You’ve got a three-day weekend. All your weekends, in fact, are three-day weekends. It’s […]
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Court Upholds California Prop. 22 in Big Win for Gig Firms Like Lyft and Uber
In the winding story of California’s gig worker laws, another chapter has come to a close. Justices in a California court of appeals ruled Monday that Proposition 22 — a 2020 ballot measure that allowed Uber, Lyft, and other platforms to classify their workers as independent contractors rather than employees – is largely constitutional, but […]
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Newsom’s Climate Budget Would Slash Funds that Protect Coast
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget would cut funding for coastal resilience projects almost in half, eliminating more than half a billion dollars of state funds this year that would help protect the coast against rising seas and climate change. The cuts are part of Newsom’s proposed $6 billion in reductions to California’s climate change programs […]
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After a Pandemic Pause, State to Restart Checking Medi-Cal Eligibility
California will soon restart its annual eligibility review for people enrolled in Medi-Cal, a process that has been suspended since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that starting in mid-April, residents enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people, will start to receive renewal notices in the mail. The process will […]
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Jump-Starting Electric Car Batteries: Will Supply Problems Stall California’s Mandate?
After more than 30 years toiling in obscurity in the ultra-complex world of battery technology, Kurt Kelty and the other chemists, electrical engineers and minerals experts racing to design the next generation of electric vehicle batteries are at last having their moment. Kelty, who ran Tesla’s battery cell team for more than a decade, now […]
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Is California Breaking Its Promise to Cut Health Care Costs?
Brian Iv works in a factory in Orange County, earning around $26 per hour. He suffers chronic pain from a lifetime of manual labor jobs and previous workplace injuries, but often treats the pain with home remedies or traditional Cambodian practices. Going to the doctor is too expensive, he said. Iv recently got a raise […]
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California Homelessness: Where are the State’s Billions Going? Here’s the New, Best Answer
In Sacramento, there’s a word that keeps popping up during discussions about the state’s homelessness crisis: “accountability.” Gov. Gavin Newsom has scolded cities and counties for failing to get more people off the street, hundreds of millions in state spending notwithstanding. “Californians demand accountability and results, not settling for the status quo,” the governor said […]