This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. The California Coastal Commission fined an oil company a record $18 million last week for repeatedly defying orders to stop work on a corroded pipeline in Santa Barbara County that caused a major oil spill nearly a decade...
Why Is It So Expensive to Build Affordable Homes in CA? It Takes Too Long
This commentary was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. The spiraling cost of housing in California has affected virtually every facet of life. California has the nation’s largest unsheltered homeless population and among the highest rates of cost-burdened renters and overcrowded homes. One reason for the seemingly...
California Sets Aside $170 Million to Thin Vegetation, Forests to Help Prevent Wildfires
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. Gov. Gavin Newsom today signed new legislation that will provide more than $170 million in state funding to help prevent wildfires while signing an order aimed at speeding up the work by easing environmental permitting. The funding —...
CA Lawmakers Quietly Sideline Bills in Secretive Suspense Process
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. In just 24 minutes and without any debate, the most powerful committee in the state Senate last week moved 33 bills from public view into a secretive process that will decide whether the measures live or die. Two...
Trump Admin Restores Dementia Research It Gutted in DEI Purge
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. The National Institutes of Health reversed its termination of a $36 million grant to a UC Davis researcher studying dementia, a day after CalMatters wrote about the cancelled grant and the researcher filed an appeal. The National Institutes...
A License to Kill in California
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. Court research by Robert Lewis, Lauren Hepler, Anat Rubin, Sergio Olmos, Cayla Mihalovich, Ese Olumhense, Ko Bragg, Andrew Donohue and Jenna Peterson Ivan Dimov was convicted of reckless driving in 2013, after fleeing police in Washington state while...
How California Can Reduce High Concession Prices in Its Taxpayer-Funded Stadiums
This commentary was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. In 1978, the San Francisco Giants announced a nickel price increase on hot dogs and beer, bringing prices to 80 cents and 90 cents, respectively, to pay for new concession equipment. One fan, Ron Gordon, took umbrage. He...
Trump Canceled Millions in CA School Grants. The State Sues to Reclaim the Money
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. The Trump administration overstepped its authority when it cut short pandemic relief grants for K-12 schools, a move that cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by California and a dozen other...
Border Patrol to Retrain Hundreds of CA Agents on Complying With the Constitution
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. The Department of Homeland Security told a federal court it will retrain more than 900 California-based Border Patrol agents after controversial immigration sweeps in Kern County in January. The sweeps are the subject of a federal lawsuit against...
He Spent Decades Researching Dementia. Trump’s DEI Purge Killed His Grant, and Dozens More
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. A California neurologist who’s among the nation’s top researchers on dementia has been swept up in President Donald Trump’s purging of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, adding to the growing cadre of research science terminated because of the...